There is a sense of groundedness in Shekhar Kammula’s cinematic world that have always been the stand-out point. His movies have so much telugu/local nativity that makes this world of his so relatable and rooted. In one of his recent interviews, one would understand the reason for this groundedness, it’s because his ideologies are rooted and his love for realistic people having sensible conversation directly reflects from his thoughts, that it seeps fluently into the writing as well. Sometimes, it looks like he does not even know how to make over-dramatic movies.
Love Story also has one such world where the characters are true and rooted, even if the world around them isn’t. The movie starts off by showing caste discrimination to a widow and her small boy, Revanth, in a village in Amoor. The introduction credits cut from there and move to Hyderabad where we see Revanth (Naga Chaitanya) running a Zumba class. He is struggling to make both ends meet as his customers (actually the customers’ husbands) are not happy with the progress they are making, hence leads to the money crunch. Enter Mounika Rani (Sai Pallavi), a “proud” Engineering graduate who comes to the city of Hyderabad to escape from the clutches of her family problems.
Does Love need caste, creed, colour when all a couple needs is trust and love? It eventually comes into picture when the “self-respect” of the caste hungry people gets violated, but it does not matter when a couple falls in love initially. A conversation involving Revanth with one other couple makes him realise that love does not need a reason, it just happens, a spark, and when that happens you want to make the most of your time enjoying and living the moment. The boy says that when you are in love, you have to make use of that small chances you get to meet her, even though it is risky to get caught. Additionally, if the couple belong to different castes with one being an oppressed caste than the other, you are left with nothing but hope and heart in these cruel times. Revanth at that point did not understand the high around love, as he just saw the mess it would lead to, but little did he know that he would also be treading the same path one day.
What makes this love story believable is that it takes two characters who have their own struggles and places them together to fall in love with each other. Revanth has dreams of making it big in life with this Zumba thing, just to prove the world that oppression starts from home and when you make that right at the start, everyone is a winner. Mouni, on the other hand, though being from a wealthy caste, has her own struggles and fears that she wants to be free from the clutches of her family, she has reasons to be so. She has been constantly bogged down all her life by saying she can’t do anything better in life. She gets an urge to do something but hasn’t got the skillset, even though she is a proud Engineering graduate. When two people who are determined to be free from clutches of their own internal war, they feel liberated when they meet. Well, Revanth is liberated at first sight, but Mouni has her reasons to be reserved and distant, but eventually she comes around. The inclusiveness and freedom makes Mouni get comfortable around Revanth. The free flowing nature of her and her dance makes Revanth want to be with Mouni no matter what.
We know that Shekhar Kammula magic is just around the corner, and it arrives in such beautiful fashion of Mouni dancing like a Peacock in rain. If you have not seen a peacock dance in rain, it’s enough if you watch Sai Pallavi dance in Evo Evo Kalale song. The flourishes and ease at which Sai Pallavi dances along with some brilliant choreography is just so satisfying to watch, one could watch her all day just for her dance.
The songs and background score by Pawan Ch support the movie aptly. The songs are magical, with Ey Pilla bringing tears to our eyes, just like how Revanth has tears when kissed by Mouni. The song and choreography of Sarang Dariya are in perfect sync that it would be a crime to just listen to the song separately without watching Sai Pallavi rocking to the beats of the song.
When all this is happening with Shekhar Kammula weaving his magic all over the Hyderabad sequences, we sense something is brewing up behind the scenes with Mouni’s family in her village. The after-effects of that haunting event in the past has had a long lasting impact on Mouni even now. I actually loved the idea of showing how Mouni was initially being so hesitant and fearful with Revanth, and then being able to let go of the fear slightly and get comfortable, and then eventually falling in love with him. The evolution of Mouni’s trust with men was shown so brilliantly that it was actually enough being the “conflict” the character needed to overcome, with the caste angle playing along the sidelines as a supporting conflict.
Unfortunately, the caste angle was played a little too much wherein the sequences and dialogues looked forced. There were unnecessary sequences in place to satisfy the caste storyline that it slightly diluted the “love story”. We sense that the caste thing was running along right from the beginning, but suddenly it bursts into the fore quite vehemently at the climax sequence by making Revanth angry, which did not fit in properly. Either the movie should have been more about caste discrimination and survival of the couple due to the caste issues, or it should have stayed in showing love and misunderstanding between the two individuals, like how it was in Fidaa. Shekhar Kammula tried to fit in a bit of both, probably to show some inventiveness from his usual movies, but proportionally it did not mix well, and at the end you are left with a sweet-sour aftertaste.
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