‘Narudi Brathuku Natana’ is one of the week's releases. In this section, we will review the BO release.
Plot:
Sathya is an aspiring actor who uses his rich dad's name as a crutch to bag auditions. A Kamal Haasan-worshipping bad actor, he only faces rejections and insults. On a momentous day, a friend delivers him a sucker punch. Sathya, motivated by a strong urge to experience life, temporarily migrates to a village in Kerala. His tryst with a simpleton named D Salmaan and a pregnant woman named Lekha changes the course of his life. Will he become an actor?
Post-Mortem:
Sathya, played by Shiva Kumar Ramachandravarapu, is a well-introduced character by Telugu cinema standards. But he is an utterly vague character even by Telugu cinema standards. We know he misses his dead mother, we know he is lonely, we know he senses that affluence has robbed him of his moral core, we know that he comprehends the bane of being obsessed with a dream, and we know that he might be suffering from low self-esteem. However, as the story progresses, we only know him as a Telugu cinema character, not a real person. That's how bad the character arc is. That's how poor the story is. That's how hollow the resolution is.
Our filmmakers know only one a few ideas when they have to make a coming-of-age story: the trope of a road trip, an innocent friendship, or a woman in sorrow. 'Narudi Brathuku Natana', a vaguely philosophical film, integrates all three elements.
The protagonist's friendship with D Salmaan and his crush on a pregnant woman with a broken past is so simplistically written that the film doesn't know what to do with those narrative threads. As such, we have the protagonist gatecrashing a wedding. We have a 'kallu' song whose lyrics could have been in a Siddu Jonnalgadda buddy comedy. Everything is just so random.
Where and how is Sathya coming of age? The film doesn't answer that question. Elements from 'Yevade Subrahmanyam' look second-hand.
Early on in the film, Sathya says that the best thing about strangers is that they don't give a f*ck about who you are. They can be brutally honest, their gaze is non-judgemental, and they don't treat you as a person of privilege even if you are on. That's what Sathya means, and anyone who has a sense knows that his assumptions are plain stupid in the context of Indian society. Strangers also don't go out of their way to help you, they don't care for you if you are hungry, and they certainly don't want to be your friend if you are lonely. This is how life is. In Telugu films, though, total strangers our protagonists accidentally meet do anything and everything to make the latter happy. Where do you find such beautiful souls in real life? Either this is lazy and convenient writing, or this reviewer is lost in incorrigible pessimism. Never mind.
Chalo, let's give 'Narudi Brathuku Natana' the leeway. Let's believe that Sathya has accumulated good Karma and that's why he is fortunate enough to come across a beautiful stranger in a new place. How shallow Sathya must be to become part of a mob that chases a couple? How empty he has to be on the inside to fly out of a person's life abruptly now that he is happy and so, he thinks he doesn't need to give a f*ck about the stranger-turned-sweetheart? What about the sin of negligent driving that must haunt him for the rest of his life?
Questions (frustrating ones) abound when you watch films like'Narudi Brathuku Natana'. Nothing is more disturbing than the fact that a self-proclaimed coming-of-age film sucks on the moral front.
Closing Remarks:
'Narudi Brathuku Natana' is superficial and immaturely written. The performances and its technical quality alone are its merits.
