Movie: Srinivasa Kalyanam
Rating: 2.5/5
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Creations
Cast: Nithiin, Raashi Khanna, Nandita Swetha, Prakash Raj, Sithara, Jayasudha, Rajendra Prasad, Naresh and others
Music: Mickey J Meyer
Cinematography: Sameer Reddy
Editor: Madhu
Produced by: Dil Raju, Shirish
Direction: Vegesna Satish
Release date: July 9, 2018
Dil Raju and Nithin have teamed up after almost 15 years. As Dil Raju has been delivering hit after hit as producer, his teaming up with Nithin has raised lot of expectations.
The trailer, the songs, the pre-release buzz… all have added positive feel to this movie. Since it is advertised as ‘family-friendly’ movie, expectations increased further.
Let’s see how the film has fared…
Story:
Vasu (Nithin) and Sri (Raashi Khanna) fall in love and their love is accepted by both the parents. However, Sri’s father (Prakash Raj) who owns a business empire asks him to sign a pre-marital agreement, as he sees every relationship like another business transition, he thinks about ‘exit’ before ‘entering.
Vasu agrees if Sri’s father also says okay to his condition. The condition is, he has to participate in every ritual and custom of his daughter’s wedding putting aside his business affairs.
What happens then forms the rest of the drama.
Artistes’ Performances:
Of late, Nithin has been consistently delivering good performance in emotional sequences. After “A Aa”, this is another matured act from him. But in rest of the movie he has looked quite dull due to the passive characterization.
Raashi Khanna has got a role that has nothing to talk about. She has looked good though.
Prakash Raj as Raashi’s businessman father, Jayasudha as Nithin’s grandmother, Rajendra Prasad as Nithin’s father have all brought their experience to the board though they have not done anything they have not done before.
Technical Excellence:
The film has high production values and lavish visuals. The wedding celebrations are shot in colorful way. The grand art direction and cinematography have made the film look beautiful and rich.
Music is weak. Except SPB crooned wedding song and one duet post interval, the music is a huge letdown on screen.
Highlights:
Emotional scenes
Production values and visuals
Wedding song
Drawback:
Boring first half
Too much of melodrama
Predictability
Preachy dialogues
Analysis:
“It’s not an event… it’s a beautiful moment,” is how the wedding is described in the posters of “Srinivasa Kalyanam”. However, the film has beautiful moments, it also has more events.
Precisely it has three wedding events. For one wedding (Nithin and Raashi’s), even event managers from Hyderabad come and start learning how to conduct a village wedding. Contrary to the poster punchline, the film is more about wedding event.
Films revolving around wedding traditions have come many times in Tollywood. Gunasekhar’s “Varudu” is one example that spoke about traditional five-day wedding ceremony.
“Srinivasa Kalyanam” talks about two things – knowing the true value of life in the materialistic world and learning the true meaning of wedding and the reason behind the elaborate celebrations.
Though the film begins with the wedding of Dr Naresh and Priya, the first half completely focuses on Nithin’s nature of work in Chandigarh and his love track with Raashi Khanna.
The film’s major wedding celebrations begin post-interval and end with a lengthy, preachy melodramatic scene.
In Dil Raju’s productions (from Bommarillu to Satamanam Bhavati), the protagonist gives a lecture in the last scene bringing in all the members in family. In some films, this technique has worked out well, but here in “Srinivasa Kalyanam” it turns out to be preachy and unbearable.
In “Varudu” too, director Gunasekhar lets us know the meaning of each word in the mantras during wedding ceremony, here too Nithin takes a lecture about pelli mantralu in the same boring way.
With weak conflict, the film turns out to be just another wedding video albeit that is made with high budget, shot by top cinematographer.
The first half of the movie itself is bland and the second half focuses on lush green visuals of Konaseema village (that we have seen in umpteen movies) and it has jokes about village brush (neem twig), has scenes explaining meaning of wife and husband with the example of whisky, soda and ice cubes. Such galore of outdated ideas!
The film is full of actors, even for blink and miss roles, the team has hired well-known artistes and have put in rich production values but they have failed to work on the script.
On the whole, “Srinivasa Kalyanam” is preachy movie full of melodrama with no strong conflict, with no soul. The theme of wedding is overkilled with insipid scenes. This may work for audiences who like to see marriage videos, but for others it is a boring affair.
Bottom-line: Bland Celebration
