Romanchakam, produced by Pranay Reddy Vanga, hits the cinemas today. Let's find out what the movie is all about.
Plot:
Anvesh develops a dating app called Romanchakam with his friends for a startup project. Through the app, he connects with Maithili, who lives in Chennai. Their bond grows into love, leading Anvesh to travel to Chennai to surprise her on her birthday. Surprisingly, Maithili refuses to meet him and cuts all contact for three months. Out of nowhere, Maithili informs him that she is traveling to Hyderabad. Anvesh arranges a flat for her stay and drops her off. However, she vanishes from the flat shortly afterward without a trace. Anvesh and his friends embark on a desperate search to uncover why she came to Hyderabad, where she disappeared, and what hidden secrets unfold next.
Performances & Technical Departments:
Sumanth Prabhas relies heavily on a single reference throughout the film: Naveen Polishetty in Jathi Ratnalu. Even without knowing the director's instructions, it is evident that he patterned his rhythm and delivery directly after Polishetty. Because the role demanded natural spontaneity and original humor for the slapstick to land, this derivative approach feels deeply out of place.
Ananthika Sanilkumar, after playing a serious role in 8 Vasanthalu, gets to play an overaged Nibbi. A voice artist with a very generic voice dubbed for her. Upendra Limaye of Animal fame plays a clownish cop, virtually shutting out any possibility of genuine thrills.
Venkatesh Kakumanu is routine. Narendra Ravi gets body-shamed constantly, and you feel sorry for him. Mani Aegurla, the third buddy, is average. The four buddies, including the male lead, play their troubles for laughs.
Vasuki Vaibhav's composition is tonally inconsistent. For a Nibba-Nibbi romance with buddy comedy elements, the music director overperforms. The title track and Anta Mugisele deserved a better story.
Post-Mortem:
Writer-director Venu Gopal Reddy comes from the Sandeep Reddy Vanga compound. But it's not the Arjun Reddy sensibility from which he draws his inspiration. It's KV Anudeep's Jathi Ratnalu that forms the entire foundational architecture of Romanchakam. Some influences are obvious. Others are not so.
1. In a crucial scene, a key character asks Anvesh to try electrocuting himself. The crazy demand, his comically nervous reaction to it, and how he navigates it are entirely derived from the Jathi Ratnalu scene where Polishetty's Srikanth is forced to stage self-immolation.
2. Anvesh and his friends stumble into a mess they have no idea how to escape. They become too nervous to think coherently. They screw themselves up in the presence of a cop. Doesn't it remind you of the core Jathi Ratnalu plot?
3. Anvesh needs a rich-looking flat. He blackmails an acquaintance to get a temporary possession of it. Again, straight out of Jathi Ratnalu.
4. Anvesh and his buddies play their genuine confusion for laughs. In too many scenes, they behave like they are small-town chaps who can't tell USP and UPS.
The lead man is overtalking. He is talking and talking throughout. In contrast, no conversation around and with the heroine is complete. You don't enter the hall expecting a romantic track inspired by the Nibba-Nibbi template in a movie produced by Vanga's banner. But that's what you get. You don't expect the buddy comedy to be a cross between MAD and Jathi Ratnalu, but that's what you get. Before the first serious scene, you have two booze scenes and one frustration song in a pub. Anvesh is an emotionally vacuous, EMI-dishonouring bloke who somehow becomes emotionally alive when someone insults his parents. This is the level on which Telugu cinema has been operating for decades.
Closing Remarks:
Romanchakam is an uninspired Jathi Ratnalu imitation that struggles to balance romance and comedy, with derivative performances, tonal inconsistencies, and a predictable, poorly written narrative.
