Just got to watch this movie lately and I am super impressed by Sai Pallavi's acting and her ability to dub her own dialogs in Telangana Telugu! I really enjoyed every single one of her dialogs in the movie written by Sekhar Kammula. Yep, this movie is a hit because of Sai Pallavi and the rural Telangana settings portrayed by awesome cinematography and those 2 songs (Vacchinde & Hey Pillagada) carried through and through by her great dance moves and subtle expressions. She is the heart and soul of this film.
Now for the story, Sekhar did an excellent job narrating the story in the first half and fell short at the intermission and the second half. He did the difficult job of portraying the love story in great detail which is where most directors typically struggle. I wish he had spent a week more thinking about how he could have created and bridged the rift between the protagonists. A missed opportunity for film to be excellent from where I rated as good today.
The scenes and dialogs set in the US could have been smoother - they look broken, hurried and induced with nonsense (Suzy, Ali,dress, etc.) in between. Here is where Sekhar lost the plot. I would have liked more dialogs from Sai Pallavi (Bhanu) here. She was unusually quiet for most of the second half. Raju (Varun's brother) could have had better dialogs. Varun Tej did a good job portraying his character.
Bhanu talks about her love to her friend, her sister, types and erases that on phone, but never overtly expresses her love to Varun throughout the film! If it were not for the super guesswork of Varun (Bhanu never gave any indications post the village life) and convincing by her dad, Bhanu would have ended up marrying that other dude - per the plot. I find it kind of odd that Sekhar missed that for the strong character he is portraying for Bhanu who could have expressed herself to Varun. Again, needs more dialogs for Sai Pallavi!
After all the talk of "half-and-half" (sagam-sagam), the fact that Bhanu is fine with the second option (Varum settling in the village) in the end seems a bit compromised and sudden without setting up relevant scenes and reasons.
All in all, a good refreshing movie. Go watch for Sai Pallavi, her Telangana accent, her dance moves, cinematography, and the monsoon rains in the village!
