"Arjun Reddy" is finally telecast on Television Premiere yesterday. I
dreaded how it will come across on TV because it was rated "A" when it
released. Amazon Prime has no qualms about releasing profanity
disguised as class wrapped inside a "Cult " film. But TV Premierre had
to show a sense of responsibility higher than that. The original version
released in theaters had almost eleven censor cuts with few minutes of
mute in an unusually long film for a modern-day version of Devadas. I
realized that from the day the sensational posters of the film got
released that here is a film that is going to rock by catering to the
youthful audience, the hostel variety. While I have been reviewing
Telugu films, unofficially, since 1991 (while I was still a sophomore), I
have never seen so much curiosity raised for a film like "Arjun Reddy"
ever for a film review. Many of my kin and kith and fellows on FB have
texted in multiple ways to ask me to review the film. I did see the film
and followed all the heaps of praise that it garnered but I didn't want
to review the film because of many reasons. One of the main reasons is
that I wanted the boy to do very well - Vijay Devarakonda - I have
interviewed him for Telugu360.com (https://www.telugu360.com/interview-with-vijay-devarakonda/)
and have high respect for him for choosing different scripts and
carving out a niche for himself in a star-struck tinsel town without any
Godfathers.
After completing the full run of a powerful show at the Box Office, and later, winning plaudits at Amazon Prime and finally getting aired on TV yesterday, I thought it makes sense to see the film for what it said and what it stands for. With all due respects to the makers of the film and the crew and the team, I personally feel "Arjun Reddy" is a freakish, once-in-a-lifetime intense account of a love story with a poetic ending. Any other interpretations would make us read more into it than what the director Sandeep Vanga Reddy himself never intended us to see in the first place. The film was aimed only at the youth audience, the go-getter generation who will their lives their way, stray occasionally, fall again and get themselves up even if they lose a phase of life or parts of themselves. There is no message here for the society because the character of Arjun Reddy is so intense and real that the story is told in tell-tale fashion with riveting authenticity of a self-obsessed medico who falls in love with a college junior and later loses her, loses himself to take to drugs, loses his way in home, practices as a surgeon, loses his grandmother - the only other lady who empathized with him, finds his father's affections again, re-spots the love of his life just as he embarks on a holiday, and finally rejoins with her and the unborn baby to lead a happy life - just where it started all over before marriage.
My issues in interpreting the film have got nothing to do with issues of a live-in relationship or consensual sex the hero and the heroine carry on in their lives but the contradictions that abound in the narrative which the director conveniently side-steps while giving us an impression he is honest. Every director dreams of a honest film, if he is not honest about his motives and objectives, what is a director for then? But in this film, the director creates situations and characters which do not lend consistency. Let me come to come to the facts straight away.
The hero is shown to be fiercely independent in the first few minutes and gets punished by the Dean of the medical school. He doesn't see any girl but the only girl he falls in love with, his junior, he goes over-protective about her, dotes on her, ensures her projects are finished on time because a lot of it is done out of his promise to be a Guardian caretaker as promised to the girl's father. And then it becomes consensual relationship. But he never shows any remorse that he has breached the trust given to the girl's father nor disclosed it when he has violated it first time (or every time!). Forget his own ibby-jibbies, he fails to even convince his father to go and talk to the girl's parents at a crucial juncture and mumbles to explain why his "father-in-law" is upset with him. While a decent relationship exists between Arjun's brother and grandmother, both of them fail to rein him in to fall in line with control of emotions and anger and suffering. If the hero is really so attached to the grandmother, the grandmother would have never told him, "All suffering is personal and let him suffer." Neither is she ever in a mood to counsel her grandson, neither is he in a position to ever listen to anybody - a lot of everything that greets the hero is self-inflicted. And a lot of problems that the hero gets in his life are all coming from lack of self-awareness and self-control. When you lack self-awareness, you live like an animal without any sense of good or bad, and then you rely on your instincts which without an overlay of received wisdom or avuncular guidance to rein them in, it leads to more and more disastrous consequences. This is what happened to the hero in the film: in an attempt to create a modern paradox of a Devdas, we see a hysterical control maniac who wants everything his way and doesn't use reason or sage counsel to help him. At a crucial juncture when someone tries to molest his love, he chases down the culprit to assault him into submission but later makes the same offender stand guarantee to ensure no further offenses happen. How bizarre!
Yet another gaping hole is when in an important moment, the hero's friend Ramakrishna is the one who introduces the hero to weed, coke and drugs. However, we find it is the friend who keeps bailing the hero out of trouble most of the times. If your best friend is the one who introduces you to drugs and then bails you out every time you land in trouble, is he your best friend? Which friend will make you lose your marbles and then stand by you each time you try to find your way? Then the hero in a bid to fortify the love of his life makes remarks about others commenting on fat air hostesses but he himself picks a fat girl as a roommate to ring-fence his girl from others' attention. The episodes about his medical practice are another thing and would have led to public outcry had the owner not belled the cat later. Is that a good example to the students again? And admitting to it, would it absolve the breach of trust earlier? All along, the hero plays such a bully in reel life and protects the girl but fails to build self-confidence in the girl so much that she doesn't retaliate at moments when they were about to get separated or she was about to get married. Can communication be so bad and yet the girl walks out on her marriage, to take care of the pregnancy. In another instance, the hero goes home after learning about the grandma's death and lectures to father that life is all about reaction to birth and death 90 per cent of the time and the ten per cent is all about those events of life and death. How silly! Is that all the wisdom the director wants to project about life? Is that the essence of life? Is being available to greeters of death the only thing that matters?
On the whole, I somehow couldn't relish watching the film though I enjoyed the narrative of the film in its full-blooded intensity and staggering length. If more commercial films are attempted with the tell-tale honesty of director Sandeep's approach, we will have more stories to experience immersively. In that sense, make no mistake, Vijay Devarakonda's performance is the performance of the decade, Ramakrishna's characterization is one of the most entertaining ones as a side-kick to the hero, and music by Radhan is one of the most enchanting scores to listen to. But the film has a disturbing straw to its narrative which makes you think which way the boys and the girls can stray into in ways which can affect your peace of mind. The director has done well to highlight a meme that infected the protagonist but it is a dangerous meme. Could any other director attempted this story differently, in more responsible ways? Like Shekhar Kammula or Nandini Reddy or Tharun Bhascker or Indraganti Mohan Krishna? I like to think so. The real test of Sandeep Vanga Reddy's mettle as a director is to immediately make his next film and then we will know whether "Arjun Reddy" is a freak film or the director has managed to shake off the experience of a character like Arjun Reddy in his memory.
Finally, the film grossed over Rs.50 crores in theatrical run and managed to stump everybody's projections. Does that make it a cult classic film? Is it like "Shiva" and "Sholay"? I do not think so. A cult film usually changes the perception of how movies are made by showing a new perspective, taking or style. A classic film is one that is universally acclaimed by all family audiences. A cult classic film is endearing to all family audiences and is clean U rated. "Shiva" was a cult film but not a classic because a section of audiences did not like the degree of violence in the film. But it was neat for all ages. Ditto for "Sholay". "Arjun Reddy" would be a cult film because of the way it let the mind of a director focus with a single-minded narrative of a character as real in flesh and blood as Arjun Reddy who is full of contradictions, surprises and shades of grey - that interval bang, for example of a hero pissing in his pants out of incontinence is a master stroke which no hero would ever dream of attempting. But Tollywood has talked about many cult films in the last two decades and every time a movie was hailed as a cult film, they said the industry is going to change for good. They said it when "Shiva" was released. They said when "Sitaramayya gari Manavaralu" got released. They said it again when "Pratighathana" was released. They said the industry has evolved when the film "Aithe" another cult film got released unleashing a new director Chandrasekhar Yeleti. They said it when "Anand" and later "Happy Days" got released. But cult films only last as long as the next style or signature of a newly-minted director is not yet in sight. But a classic film like a "Mayabazaar" or a "Shankarabharanam" or a "Sagar Sangamam" or "Athadu" or "Mutyla Muggu" they will remain in limelight forever. Unfortunately, "Arjun Reddy" is not a classic film because a. it is not a "U" certificate film and b. it is not a classic film, as simple as that.
I would have rated the film 2.75/5 if I have seen the film first time. And while I feel happy for the boy Vijay who has stormed the bastion of Tollywood (and all the aged and dynastic heroes who are pissing in the pants for the audacity of the new age youth icon Vijay Devarakonda), I hope he selects responsible scripts in future to consolidate his career.
After completing the full run of a powerful show at the Box Office, and later, winning plaudits at Amazon Prime and finally getting aired on TV yesterday, I thought it makes sense to see the film for what it said and what it stands for. With all due respects to the makers of the film and the crew and the team, I personally feel "Arjun Reddy" is a freakish, once-in-a-lifetime intense account of a love story with a poetic ending. Any other interpretations would make us read more into it than what the director Sandeep Vanga Reddy himself never intended us to see in the first place. The film was aimed only at the youth audience, the go-getter generation who will their lives their way, stray occasionally, fall again and get themselves up even if they lose a phase of life or parts of themselves. There is no message here for the society because the character of Arjun Reddy is so intense and real that the story is told in tell-tale fashion with riveting authenticity of a self-obsessed medico who falls in love with a college junior and later loses her, loses himself to take to drugs, loses his way in home, practices as a surgeon, loses his grandmother - the only other lady who empathized with him, finds his father's affections again, re-spots the love of his life just as he embarks on a holiday, and finally rejoins with her and the unborn baby to lead a happy life - just where it started all over before marriage.
My issues in interpreting the film have got nothing to do with issues of a live-in relationship or consensual sex the hero and the heroine carry on in their lives but the contradictions that abound in the narrative which the director conveniently side-steps while giving us an impression he is honest. Every director dreams of a honest film, if he is not honest about his motives and objectives, what is a director for then? But in this film, the director creates situations and characters which do not lend consistency. Let me come to come to the facts straight away.
The hero is shown to be fiercely independent in the first few minutes and gets punished by the Dean of the medical school. He doesn't see any girl but the only girl he falls in love with, his junior, he goes over-protective about her, dotes on her, ensures her projects are finished on time because a lot of it is done out of his promise to be a Guardian caretaker as promised to the girl's father. And then it becomes consensual relationship. But he never shows any remorse that he has breached the trust given to the girl's father nor disclosed it when he has violated it first time (or every time!). Forget his own ibby-jibbies, he fails to even convince his father to go and talk to the girl's parents at a crucial juncture and mumbles to explain why his "father-in-law" is upset with him. While a decent relationship exists between Arjun's brother and grandmother, both of them fail to rein him in to fall in line with control of emotions and anger and suffering. If the hero is really so attached to the grandmother, the grandmother would have never told him, "All suffering is personal and let him suffer." Neither is she ever in a mood to counsel her grandson, neither is he in a position to ever listen to anybody - a lot of everything that greets the hero is self-inflicted. And a lot of problems that the hero gets in his life are all coming from lack of self-awareness and self-control. When you lack self-awareness, you live like an animal without any sense of good or bad, and then you rely on your instincts which without an overlay of received wisdom or avuncular guidance to rein them in, it leads to more and more disastrous consequences. This is what happened to the hero in the film: in an attempt to create a modern paradox of a Devdas, we see a hysterical control maniac who wants everything his way and doesn't use reason or sage counsel to help him. At a crucial juncture when someone tries to molest his love, he chases down the culprit to assault him into submission but later makes the same offender stand guarantee to ensure no further offenses happen. How bizarre!
Yet another gaping hole is when in an important moment, the hero's friend Ramakrishna is the one who introduces the hero to weed, coke and drugs. However, we find it is the friend who keeps bailing the hero out of trouble most of the times. If your best friend is the one who introduces you to drugs and then bails you out every time you land in trouble, is he your best friend? Which friend will make you lose your marbles and then stand by you each time you try to find your way? Then the hero in a bid to fortify the love of his life makes remarks about others commenting on fat air hostesses but he himself picks a fat girl as a roommate to ring-fence his girl from others' attention. The episodes about his medical practice are another thing and would have led to public outcry had the owner not belled the cat later. Is that a good example to the students again? And admitting to it, would it absolve the breach of trust earlier? All along, the hero plays such a bully in reel life and protects the girl but fails to build self-confidence in the girl so much that she doesn't retaliate at moments when they were about to get separated or she was about to get married. Can communication be so bad and yet the girl walks out on her marriage, to take care of the pregnancy. In another instance, the hero goes home after learning about the grandma's death and lectures to father that life is all about reaction to birth and death 90 per cent of the time and the ten per cent is all about those events of life and death. How silly! Is that all the wisdom the director wants to project about life? Is that the essence of life? Is being available to greeters of death the only thing that matters?
On the whole, I somehow couldn't relish watching the film though I enjoyed the narrative of the film in its full-blooded intensity and staggering length. If more commercial films are attempted with the tell-tale honesty of director Sandeep's approach, we will have more stories to experience immersively. In that sense, make no mistake, Vijay Devarakonda's performance is the performance of the decade, Ramakrishna's characterization is one of the most entertaining ones as a side-kick to the hero, and music by Radhan is one of the most enchanting scores to listen to. But the film has a disturbing straw to its narrative which makes you think which way the boys and the girls can stray into in ways which can affect your peace of mind. The director has done well to highlight a meme that infected the protagonist but it is a dangerous meme. Could any other director attempted this story differently, in more responsible ways? Like Shekhar Kammula or Nandini Reddy or Tharun Bhascker or Indraganti Mohan Krishna? I like to think so. The real test of Sandeep Vanga Reddy's mettle as a director is to immediately make his next film and then we will know whether "Arjun Reddy" is a freak film or the director has managed to shake off the experience of a character like Arjun Reddy in his memory.
Finally, the film grossed over Rs.50 crores in theatrical run and managed to stump everybody's projections. Does that make it a cult classic film? Is it like "Shiva" and "Sholay"? I do not think so. A cult film usually changes the perception of how movies are made by showing a new perspective, taking or style. A classic film is one that is universally acclaimed by all family audiences. A cult classic film is endearing to all family audiences and is clean U rated. "Shiva" was a cult film but not a classic because a section of audiences did not like the degree of violence in the film. But it was neat for all ages. Ditto for "Sholay". "Arjun Reddy" would be a cult film because of the way it let the mind of a director focus with a single-minded narrative of a character as real in flesh and blood as Arjun Reddy who is full of contradictions, surprises and shades of grey - that interval bang, for example of a hero pissing in his pants out of incontinence is a master stroke which no hero would ever dream of attempting. But Tollywood has talked about many cult films in the last two decades and every time a movie was hailed as a cult film, they said the industry is going to change for good. They said it when "Shiva" was released. They said when "Sitaramayya gari Manavaralu" got released. They said it again when "Pratighathana" was released. They said the industry has evolved when the film "Aithe" another cult film got released unleashing a new director Chandrasekhar Yeleti. They said it when "Anand" and later "Happy Days" got released. But cult films only last as long as the next style or signature of a newly-minted director is not yet in sight. But a classic film like a "Mayabazaar" or a "Shankarabharanam" or a "Sagar Sangamam" or "Athadu" or "Mutyla Muggu" they will remain in limelight forever. Unfortunately, "Arjun Reddy" is not a classic film because a. it is not a "U" certificate film and b. it is not a classic film, as simple as that.
I would have rated the film 2.75/5 if I have seen the film first time. And while I feel happy for the boy Vijay who has stormed the bastion of Tollywood (and all the aged and dynastic heroes who are pissing in the pants for the audacity of the new age youth icon Vijay Devarakonda), I hope he selects responsible scripts in future to consolidate his career.
