Sekhar Kammula’s delicate movie attracts winsome performances from Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi -

How does one define honour? Does it lie in adhering to caste norms, or does it lie in making a safe setting and instilling confidence in a child to speak up when points go awry? Director Sekhar Kammula makes use of the platform of a mainstream entertainer to make family audiences introspect.

Love Story has all of the trimmings of a Kammula film. The music (debut composer Pawan Ch) can sweep us off our toes, the strong-willed major girl dances like a dream and the hero is an intensive gentleman. Romance blossoms on the terraces of middle-class properties in Padmarao Nagar, Secunderabad. As a result of the film unfolds in modest settings, with out larger-than-life frills, it reveals how absorbing a film will probably be when there’s an incredible script.

In Armoor, Telangana, Revanth (Naga Chaitanya) grows up listening to his mother (Easwari Rao) reiterate the importance of incomes and residing with dignity. She tells him that it’s increased to find a way the place you possibly can present financial assist than having to acquire it. Revanth’s is profitable story; he runs a small Zumba centre inside the giant metropolis. There are challenges, nonetheless he’s ready the place he could make use of any individual.

Sekhar contrasts this with Mounica (Sai Pallavi), an upper-caste girl who arrives inside the metropolis with needs in her eyes. Her family owns acres of land, nonetheless she has to battle for her rights — financial and in every other case. She realises that her low ranking in engineering acquired’t get her a fat paycheck. Prolonged after Blissful Days (2007), by means of which Kammula focussed on engineering campuses, he reveals us the alternative facet — of an engineer embracing her innate aptitude for dance to get ahead in life, moderately than pushing keys on a laptop from dawn to dusk. Mounica finds her wings to fly nonetheless lives in fastened concern of her family disapproving of her work. She phrases it ‘narakam’ (hell) and also you’ll empathise alongside together with her plight.

Inside the metropolis, there are usually not any ‘us’ and ‘them’ caste variations, at least on a ground diploma. Revanth and Mouncia can take Zumba and dance programs collectively and earn a residing. Nonetheless, the cracks in society are laid bare through the story of 1 different couple.

Once more in Armoor, there are telling scenes the place Revanth and his mother proceed to be appeared down upon by an upper-caste household. His work is mocked and any individual doesn’t assume twice sooner than offering him second-hand shirts.

Mounica and Revanth’s respective baggage from the earlier run as an undercurrent to the romance. He’s uninterested in caste disparities. She too is battling one factor sophisticated and has to hunt out the braveness to voice it. She finds solace inside the metropolis since she's going to breathe free, and doesn’t should look over her shoulders for safety. In a cleverly written scene, she tells Revanth that she’s going to bop on the state of affairs that he on a regular basis maintains two toes distance. Everyone knows that she isn’t referring to caste; one factor else has left her scarred.

It’s a film the place the whole thing comes collectively in synergy. Naga Chaitanya and Sai Pallavi internalise their parts so properly that they’re in sync with the characters they portray. Chaitanya is pure and emotes with all sincerity, triumphing in a career-defining operate. Sai Pallavi is excellent, expressing the minute fears of Mounica. Props to Easwari Rao and the pleasant cameo by Gangavva. Rajeev Kanakala acts like an embodiment of conceitedness and evil so efficiently, that I ended up hating him fully.

A handful of scenes unfold inside the neighborhood of Purana Pul (laptop graphics?), a reminder of a historic love story Hyderabad is said to. Revanth and Mounica too should cross the bridge amid storms, metaphorically speaking, to have the flexibility to start life afresh.

Love Story might have been another Sairaat, nonetheless Sekhar expertly steers it in a particular route inside the remaining act. Romance is among the many largely explored genres in industrial cinema and after a level, one tends to view it with cynicism. Nonetheless this one saved me invested; I watched with bated breath, hoping that Revanth and Mounica cross the hurdles of their path.