Praveen Sattaru's Guntur Talkies

First things first. The promos are all wrong, there is not much of Rashmi Gautam in Guntur Talkies as the promos would have led you to believe, which is not necessarily a bad thing in itself, given how her character pans out. Secondly, there is a lot of filth you have to sit through, but you wouldn’t hold that against the film since the experience is generally rewarding for about 3/4ths of the plot.

Praveen Sattaru has truly come of age with Guntur Talkies and this is by far his most confident outing. The screenplay by Siddhu Jonnalagadda along with Praveen is smartly written and the acting is perfect by the lead pair Naresh and Siddhu. They share a great chemistry and for once the senior pro does seem to know what he is doing, and brings in a lot of expertise to the deliciously written role. It is a rewarding role for an actor at this stage of his career and Naresh pitches the character perfectly, the twitching eye and all.

The first half of the film celebrates its rawness with its richly detailed and tenderly nuanced portrayals of its protagonists. The day in their lives, the trials and tribulations and the works are notched up perfectly and the actors, as said earlier, revel in their roles. There are no unwanted songs and the background music does not intrude into the experience. The film takes its own sweet time getting into the plot, but no one complains since it is not everyday we see such charming self indulgence in Telugu Cinema, and it does have a story to tell too. Who would have thought?

Things get a bit down when the other players’ paths converge into that of the protagonists and the film feels like a, for the lack of better word, “film”. The other actors like Raghubabu, Tagubotu Ramesh, Mahesh Manjrekar, Shraddha Das, fine actors they are, seem too theatrical and out of place in this world.  The nuances and detailing go for a toss as a result, which is still fine, and even the second half does have its moments too, but they don’t all add up and the film falls flat on its face in a climax that can only be called unpardonable. Praveen Sattaru creates an intricate plot, but probably got too confused in his own creation, and chose to Mexican Standoff his way out of it all, which is a really really bad way to end what was otherwise, and until then, a very smart and good looking film.

Guntur Talkies warrants a stronger recommendation than what it gets now, which can only be attributed to its terrible ending, but it still remains the best film to come out of Tollywood this year so far.