Title: Aadavallu Meeku Johaarlu
Cast: Sharwanand, Rashmika Mandanna and others
Director: Kishore Tirumala
Run-Time: 141 minutes
Rating: 2.5/5
In a serious scene, Radhika Sarathkumar's character tells her son Chiru (Sharwanand) that women expect their men to have a sense of humour. 'Be funny, take care', the good mother encourages her unmarried, frustrated son. Her sermon left this reviewer wondering how one can nurture a sense of humor when half a dozen boring elders in the family are only capable of being upset or self-satire. In the film under review, the male lead's desperation to marry has led her to engage in occasional prankster behaviour. The only thing is that the film wants to present it as cuteness.
Chiru runs a wedding hall (if you notice). He falls in love with Aadhya (Rashmika Mandanna), who takes a liking to him after protecting him from potential sexual predators (an old trope in the 1990s too). Two months pass and Chiru and the highly worried lady elders in his family are convinced that Aadhya is going to be the wife/daughter-in-law. This is when Aadhya has a blast: her mother Vakula (Khushboo), a self-made entrepreneur, is hard to break. Will Chiru explain to her about his self-certified ability to become Aadhya's husband?
The film comes with a decent but curious premise. The male leadership feels that he is a victim of the matriarchal mindset of the elders in his family. The element of one's past that haunts us and determines our mindset is also touched upon by the script. To the film's credit, Sharwanand's character is sidelined and the women find room to untie the knots and/or soften their maximal status in a day.
As much as the plot and climax deserve, the narration suffers from boring dialogue-writing. The lines are steep and unnecessarily functional when they transform into monologues.
Usually, most rom-com tracks suffer from zero chemistry between the hero-heroine duo. Sharwanand and Rashmika are seen sharing negative chemistry in 'AMJ'. If you have seen the movie, try to remember just one instance where you felt that Rashmika's Aadhya really loves Chiru. Just one. There is hardly an intense vibe that makes us feel for Chiru and that is because of his characterization. He is always made to look like a comically frustrated person.
Barring Urvashi, the rest of the senior cast (mainly Radhika Sarathkumar and Khushboo) get to play one-sided characters who barely find their rhythm. He has no existence before Chiru. None of the emotional scenes involved in them are heartwarming and we hardly sympathize with them until before the climax. The men of Chiru's family are silent spectators to the circus around them.
After feeding off the talent of Venela Kishore, the film struggles to generate laughter through comedian Satya. Ravi Shankar has a cameo in an archaic sub-plot that exists to rescue Chiru in an artificial turn of events.
Devi Sri Prasad's background score is dull, but the songs are a mixed bag (unpopular opinion: the title track is better than the rest). Sujit Sarang's cinematography is functional.