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Chaavu Kaburu Challaga Movie Review: A barely watchable rom com saved by a mother & son's story
Chaavu Kaburu Challaga feels watchable as it intersperses themes like sacrifice and overcoming bad memories.
Movie Name: Chaavu Kaburu Challaga
Cast: Kartikeya Gummakonda, Lavanya Tripathi, Aamani, Murali Sharma and others
Director: Koushik Pegallapati
Rating: 2.5/5
Right at the outset, debutant director Koushik Pegallapati thanks Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev for inspiring him. Knowing the premise of the film, we are tempted to assume that the 'Thank You' note to the spiritualist may have something to do with the film's juxtaposition between birth and death. However, by the end of the film, we end up wondering that the nod to Sadhguru may have to do with Basthi Balaraju believing that every major problem has got a simple solution, a line that this film delivers in a glib fashion.
Balaraju (Kartikeya Gummakonda) is the driver of a hearse. Having seen the relatives of the dead cry every day, he has become numb to death. It is love at first sight for him when he sees Mallika (Lavanya Tripathi), who has just been widowed by the death of her husband Peter. He proposes. She and her in-laws spurn him. This is also when Balaraju comes to know of a shocking truth about his mother (Aamani). The rest of the film is about how the two threads intersect in order to give a sense of meaning to the film.
To be fair to the writer-director, he trots out an interesting premise. It's not every day that a mainstream commercial film shows the female lead as a widow. In the hands of an inferior filmmaker, Mallika would have been widowed a day or two after the wedding without her marriage being consummated, thereby reflecting the dominance of patriarchal thinking.
Mallika is a nurse and, of all places, she is posted in a maternity ward. She is an active witness to the joys of new births, while Balaraju is a passive witness to the poignancy of deaths. This is a contrast that the film highlights for good.
While the writing looks deep on paper, the emotional arc of the film is a bit contrived. For example, the interval confrontation between the Balaraju-Mallika duo forks out forced philosophy.
For all the uncommon nature of the premise, the film feels like a crypto college campus boy-stalks-girl 'romance'. Balaraju breaks into solemn occasions and gets creepy with Mallika. And her family members are reduced to giving reaction shots for most of the first half. They are like Mallika's college friends who have to passively express disgust at Balaraju's insensitive behaviour.
At one point, Mallika angrily asks Balaraju if he can't see that her family members are angry at him. The audience's answer is, 'No, we can't see'. They don't look like they are going through a turbulent phase, made worse by Balaraju's antics.
The entire first half, barring Jakes Bejoy's enjoyable songs, feels like a repetition of the same scene in different ways. It doesn't help that Kartikeya's carefree demeanour becomes monotonous after a point. He tries to be too cute while in the mold of a typical stalker.
The film comes into its own when Balaraju's mother, Aamani, gets a voice in the story. The drama involves Srikanth Iyyengar, one of the finest character artists out there. But this segment would have worked even better had Aamani's emotional history been fleshed out to a touching effect. Even so, the mother-son bonding comes up trumps. Murali Sharma, who is one of the most buzzed-about character artist in Tollywood, is superb in the role of Lavanya Tripathi's good-natured father-in-law.
Chaavu Kaburu Challaga feels watchable when it intersperses themes like sacrifice and overcoming bad memories. At other times, though, it is a superficial rom-com where even its avowed philosophy feels forced.
Movie Trailer:
