Shiva Raj Kanumuri’s Jayammu Nischayammu Raa (2016) Movie Review

Cast – Srinivas Reddy, Poorna, Praveen, Krishna Bhagavan, Jogi brothers, Krishnudu
Music Composed by Ravichandra
Cinematography by Nagesh Banell
Edited by Venkat
Writer & Director – Shiva Raj Kanumuri
Producers – Shiva Raj Kanumuri, Satish Kanumuri

Censor Certificate: UA & Runtime: 162 Minutes

Books being adapted to movies are always risky thing to do, not always does it work out. Even in the case of something as epic as ‘Muthyamantha Muddu’, there is a burst on which is better. I belong to the side that suffrages for books. And in the case of ‘Jayammu Nischayammu Raa’, I feel the makers should not have attempted to amalgamate Viswanatha Sastry’s ‘Alpajeevi’ with Stephen Potter’s ‘One Upmanship’, ‘Lifemanship’ and Basu Chatterjee’s Chhoti Si Baat (1975) into a single film.

Jayammu Nishayammu Raa is the story of Karimnagar guy Sarva Mangalam (Srinivas Reddy), a young Government employee who suffers from lack of self-confidence. Sarva Mangakam is painfully timid and cannot extol his love for Rani (Poorna), whom he sees daily at the bus stop on their way to work, or while working on Rani’s Nursery file. He knows his love for Rani is true, but somehow cannot muster up the courage to strike a personal conversation with her. On the other side, Kantharao (Sri Vishnu) & Joint Collector (Ravi Varma) are Sarva’s rivals. Kantharao has a bike, is gregarious – streetsmart and Joint Collector has power and knows how to flirt. In short, both are better than Sarva in every way possible. How Sarva sort things to become self-confident, cogent man he always longed to be, and wins his love forms the crux of the story.

Jayammu Nischayammu Raa’s biggest drawback remains the same old storyline about low on confidence guy going against odds and winning his love as earlier seen in Telugu films like Burri Palem Bullodu (1979), Kobbari Boddam (1991)… etc. The script carelessly moves into various unclear directions, coming back to the main topic at intervals that eventually leads to a loss on interest and one starts questioning that what are they upto with such a messed up narration simply heading nowhere. The unnecessary stuffed melodrame, forced repeated comedy and songs hardly give you anything to praise in its boringly long duration (162 Minutes) and that further forces you to think that how could this even excite the makers reading the script.

Unfortunately the biggest culprit of the screenplay is its soulless romance and soundtrack that trammels its overall impact pretty badly and the film pitiably drags both in its first half and the second half featuring all unimpressive characters and their interactions. Like, In the early frames director tries to showcase Rani as an individual person, but by the end she bases her thoughts on Sarva Mangalam on the words of his house owner. But in the earlier half Rani goes through rough test to believe the words on the JC. Similarly, there is no proper explanation or arc regarding Kanatharao’s character, he neither proposes Rani nor makes a step further in their relationship. Also a asexual person never tries to impress a woman for outing, but here things move forward with the help of colleagues and forces ‘Mangalavaram’ (aka. non-sexual in English) point like fun. The writer and director has taken Attarintiki Daredhi period and narrated it like 1980’s film with protract episodes.

Its cinematographer, choreographer, editor and music composer actually follow the vision of their director who probably wished to make 80’s musical-romantic-drama instead of believable and present trend musical drama. The film’s mediocre score is hugely worked on the musical instruments and doesn’t have that required melody to pull you in. The sound designer could have mixed the BG score better, the important dialogues of the film are drowned out by the loud background score. Perhaps the gravest error regarding JN comes with regard to its slipshod editing and the intolerably lengthy run-time of the film. Which is indeed why JN comes across as a mellow film that never puts across convincingly what it wants to express.

In the performance section Srinivas Reddy puts in the best with his utmost sincerity and tries hard to impress with his local Karimnagar slang. Poorna on the other hand provides another fine performance post Rajugari Gadhi. Supporting cast Dubbing Janaki, Jogi Brothers, Sri Vishnu, Krishna Bhagwan and Ravi Varma played their given parts very well.

To sum it up, I have one suggestion to make. If you are really interested in watching some quality cinema, then strictly watch “Chotti Si Baat” or “School for Scoundrels” first before opting for Jayammu Nischayammu Ra. Because Shivaraj Kanumuri’s JN is highly capable of ruining your entertaining experience of watching originals.

Survi Review: 1/5