Kranthi Madhav’s Malli Malli Idhi Rani Roju (2015) Movie Review

Starcast: Sharwanand, Nithya Menon, Nasser, Tejaswi, Purnarvi Bhopal, Sharvya, Pavani reddy, Sana, Chinna, Naveen, Pavithra Lokesh
Music Director: Gopi Sunder
Director: Kranthi Madhav
Dialogues: Sai Madhav Burra
Censor Certificate: U
Runtime: 142 MInutes

Malli Malli Idhi Rani Roju a beautiful love story. Rajaram (Sharwanand) is an aspiring National Athlete. In the process of getting selected for Nationals, he comes across Nazriya Khanum (Nithya Menen) and gets instantly attracted.  Both start sharing their love in different means, but never really try to express their feeling by saying “I Love You”. Rajaram leaves to Delhi and wins the Gold medal in National Athletics championship. As things were getting better, Rajaram and Nazriya get separated due to some issues. After few years, Mahek (Tejaswi Madivada) challenges her mom Nazriya to test her true love. Did Rajaram still waited for his true love to return? Will Rajaram understand the issues with Nazriya? How did they break the misconception barrier between them and fall in love again forms the rest of the storyline.

The home work done by the actors reflects in their performances. Sharwanand as the lead man proves that he is an actor who thrives on challenges. He adopts a pitch that he clings to throughout, which makes the characters transition through an ambit of avatars convincingly. Nithya Menen is endearing as the girl next door who dares to dream big but lacks the heart and she does well particularly in the second hour. She is sure going to win some hearts with her impeccant feature. The duos share a great chemistry on screen. Malli Malli Idhi Rani Roju is solely their show. Their charm and confidence make up for the mediocre storytelling. The daughters in the film, Punarnavi Bhupalam & Tejaswi Madivada are good in their characters. Pavithra Lokesh plays a prominent role in the film. Rest of the characters Nassar, Sana, Sharvya, Chinna and Naveen supported the main leads well.

It takes a lot of guts to make a film as simple, honest and transparent as “Malli Malli Idhi Rani Roju” in this day and age when item songs are happily letting it all hang out. MMIRR has a quaint old world charm to it. It doesn’t try to be anything but a story of love and trust set against today’s generation. The dialogues though cleaving to the film’s diaphanous maneuvers are at times enormously moving. Like, “Lakshyam ammayikanna sexy ga untundi”, “Paataku Manasu undali kanni, Matham kadhu”, “Kanulu kuda matladagalav anni telidhu, Nee kanulu chuse daakaa” etc. Kranthi Madhav returns to direction after a decent gap, by his standards and disappointment. It was built up as an intense romantic saga and from where I come, Intense romantic films needed to be fluid and have uniformity in spite of the turmoil’s that take place in regards to the story. Writer Director Kranthi Madhav concentrates more on the relationship and less on the story as a whole. Which is why nothing happens around throughout the film? You have good instants between the lead pair – their willingness – sacrifice for eachother, and respect they have for each other. A departure from the instant amatory formula of today’s films, the film takes it easy giving the characters time to breathe and develop into affinity. But in doing so, the film remains with so many conversations, repetitious scenes and the story going around in a loop. This is primarily because of the screenplay and the overuse monologues as a narrative device also doesn’t work very well.

Musically, Malli Malli Idhi Rani Roju is a treat. “Yenno Yenno” probably the best track. The song, Marhaba, too is tastefully done. The music and dialogues often comes to the rescue of an otherwise clumsy narrative. The cinematography is great and captures a lot of wonderful sights, and flavors of the Vishakapatnam. The editing is off the mark and you feel as if the movie stretches out for a bit too long towards the end. Something which caught my eye instantly was that it didn’t look or look-like a low budget film, even though it was one. Special marks to the production design.

Malli Malli Idhi Rani Roju is an altruistic tale of love, a refreshing break from the common corroborates – retaliation, backstabbing, jealousy in today’s love stories. The real theme of MMIRR was not revealed in the promos. It’s nothing new but presented in an innovative way. Well, the feel good screenplay has made it a very promising film. The movie is too tangled to transport you. At almost 142 minutes, it requires enormous patience. It needs some trimming in the second half. However, director Kranthi Madhav succeeds in infusing an even rhythm to the proceedings. All in all, watch Malli Malli Idhi Rani Roju for the feel good first half and charmingly old-world romantic take. Besides, it’s not like you have a choice. You are bound. Your other choices are.. Gr..Garr.. Gaddam Gang and Pesarratu!! Hehe..

Survi Review: 2.5/5