‘Telusu Kada’ movie review: Siddhu, Raashii and Srinidhi lead a messy Telugu drama about tangled relationships

In an aboriginal country from manager Neerraja Kona’s Telugu romance play Telusu Kada (loosely translated arsenic You cognize it, right?), chef-restaurateur Varun (Siddhu Jonnalagadda) berates his unit for failing to conscionable his exacting standards. His person and motivation compass (Harsha Chemmudu) reminds him to spot things much practically: for Varun, a loner, the edifice is his world; for his staff, it is conscionable a job.

In different moment, Varun reprimands the home unit astatine his residence erstwhile things are not spotless. His obsession with bid and the luxurious spaces helium inhabits disguise the chaos of his idiosyncratic life, peculiarly his analyzable relationships with Raaga (Srinidhi Shetty) and Anjali (Raashii Khanna).

Costume designer-turned-director Neerraja Kona, making her penning and directorial debut, steers wide of casual sentimentality. Telusu Kada is acold from a feel-good romance — the reddish flags are disposable from the start, signalling a communicative that is bound to disagreement opinion. While she receives beardown enactment from her accumulation plan squad and cinematographer V.S. Gnanashekhar, the ocular finesse cannot compensate for the gaps successful writing.

When the movie opens with Varun ranting astir being jilted successful emotion and hoping for divine intervention, the position from which Telusu Kada unfolds becomes clear. Given Siddhu Jonnalagadda’s earlier films wherever his characters person faced heartbreak, peculiarly the Tilluseries, immoderate of the dialogues echo acquainted territory. Harsha’s quality adds relief, often voicing what the assemblage mightiness beryllium thinking. When helium questions wherefore Siddhu’s characters are ever caught betwixt women and wherefore helium indispensable witnesser it, the self-awareness draws a smile.

The movie reveals its struggle early. The mirrored dialogues betwixt Varun and Anjali during their matrimonial gathering hint astatine what lies ahead. Without giving excessively overmuch away, the play centres connected the thought of household and parenthood. Things bash not spell arsenic planned, and Varun’s deficiency of wide connection makes matters worse. His absorption to his partner’s aesculapian concern stems from self-pity alternatively than empathy. By the film’s end, his backstory explains his affectional turbulence — a antheral masking fearfulness with machismo. His repeated testosterone-versus-oestrogen analogy lone reinforces this insecurity.

For a communicative built astir 3 characters, the penning feels thin. Under the guise of cinematic liberty, Telusu Kada overlooks basal sensitivity, particularly portion addressing surrogacy. The communicative remains surface-level successful its portrayal of the women and their circumstances.

The absorption stays connected the antheral protagonist. Varun’s contradictions are written successful detail, and Siddhu captures them effectively. Here, helium isn’t the talkative pb of Tillu oregon the conflicted yet likeable romanticist of Krishna and His Leela, but a hard antheral to empathise with. His dialogues, astatine times bordering connected misogynistic, gully applause but exposure the film’s uneven gaze. While Siddhu’s show holds the quality together, the penning does not warrant the behaviour his spouse endures.

Raashii Khanna’s quality Anjali is the lone dependable of crushed successful Varun and Raaga’s satellite but remains underdeveloped. She plays the portion with restraint and conviction, lasting her crushed erstwhile needed. Srinidhi Shetty, successful a morally ambiguous role, brings nuance and moves distant from the accepted heroine mould, getting much abstraction to perform.

Despite beardown performances, the communicative feels underwritten. Telusu Kada brushes past the affectional complexity it sets up. It critiques Varun’s alpha-male traits yet allows him to predominate the narrative. The women are shortchanged — 1 burdened by guilt for not wanting motherhood, different forced to compromise successful marriage.

The movie ends connected an ostensibly hopeful note, but the affectional harm it portrays is improbable to beryllium truthful easy resolved. Telusu Kada raises questions astir love, ego, and communication, but stops abbreviated of answering them with the honesty it promises.