Venky Atluri’s Mr Majnu (2019) Movie Review

Star Cast: Akhil Akkineni, Nidhhi Agerwal, Izabelle Leita, Naga babu, Subbaraju, Rao Ramesh, Jayaprakash, Pavitra Lokesh and Sithara.
Music Composed by Thaman S
Directed by Venky Atluri
Edited by Navin Nooli

Censor Certificate: UA & Runtime: 145 Minutes

When two people meet, they somehow can’t get over the attraction and then try to find the similarities between them. If they feel, the other person should be in their life without a doubt, they sacrifice themselves to become a union of souls. This is the form of “Love” that a man and woman go through who are strangers/related in the right way.

Motherly, Brotherly, Fatherly and any other-ly love has its own limits as lust doesn’t take over them. We can term “Lust” as an impurity but it is required for two people to form a bond for life as a soul. Hence, love stories and romance based films find audiences everywhere and even in conservative homes, parents are starting to respect young people’s views too. But Venky Atluri, whose film is all about the difference between Love and Lust, cooks up an half-boiled egg which is already quite rotten.

Few people have the talents to be smooth talkers and women somehow wind up falling for them unhinged. Any person loves attention and they know how to give it. The hero character, in this movie, Vikram Krishna, which is a nod to Lord Krishna and first film of Nagarjuna, is a smooth talker, he doesn’t stalk women, he is not bothered about being loved or being sad. He knows to lust, laughs, and respect. While he does think physical attraction as love, he is not wrong entirely, as it is the first step of love.

Rather than going on and on about seven stages of love that Arabic literature throws at us, I would suggest you listen to Satrangi Re from Dil Se and try to dissect the lyrics if you’re interested. You will get to know the seven stages of love. If the director took this theme of seven stages of love and made it the desire of heroine and Hero trying to go through all that unknowingly, maybe this artificially staged love story might have had some legit moments.

Why it feels artificial? Well, gimmicks take over any rudimentary plot that Venky could cook up. He comes up with Cinderella story nods which excited me briefly but it remained at a basic level as a device used to cleverly manipulate a person than really making a mark. The artificiality came in the writing and it is also in the performances. We can feel that the director wanted to be in all characters and make them act in his way.

He did do same in Tholiprema but he did give it a structure, backbone and strong ground to hold on. Here there is no structure, tries to make gimmicks as the backbone and the strong ground is a puddle of muddy water, that sucks you in until you die. It is an effort to convince a hero and give success and it is an even bigger effort to continue the streak. Gimmicks can never replace heart and soul. If they do, we all would be cleverly outsmarting each other for days than lead a life that is practical and plausible. Anyways, this Majnu wanted to be “The Wink Boy” but ended up as a “Wrinkle”!

Theatrical Trailer: