Premalu - movie review

If at all there ever was movie that is a potpourri of southern languages, this would be it. A mallu movie, with a telugu-ish title, with lead character studying in Salem and most of the story happening in Hyderabad, they almost cover the full circle of south India. There are many dialogues in tamil and some in telugu as well!! But this is not the USP of the movie. It is neither a ground breaking or first of its kind ever story line or nor does it has extraordinary scenes and situations where the characters act their skin off or have ultra high octane action scenes. In fact, the movie is the ante thesis of all this and is as simple as it comes when it comes to rom-com's with the treatment similar to hindi movies of the late 90's or early 2000.

The title of the movie crops up right when the hero sits dejected after his love proposal rejection during the last day of his college. He is as clueless as any average college pass out, without any ambition but counting on moving abroad to make his future. His UK visa gets rejected and while trying for GATE exams, struggles to cope up even in the coaching classes. By chance he gets to meet the heroine in a wedding and falls head over heels in love with her. He decides to stay in Hyderabad, taking a job in a desi KFC, called TFC and moves to a PG close by to where the heroine stays. The heroine meanwhile is in a settled IT job and has high hopes about her life partner. Her team lead passively pursues her and tries to be around her at every available and creatable opportunity, without crossing any limits. How the hero manages to cut over the team lead, his main competitor, proposes to the heroine, gets rejected and finally unites with her in the climax, that happens at airport which are specifically built for uniting the lead couple, form the rest of the story.

The reason why this movie piqued interest for a watch, was the fact that it was one of the biggest block busters of this year and was in my eyeline at whichever site i went. And once i started the movie, till the time the heroine sets in, it was quite bland to be honest. But once she is introduced the sheer chemistry between the lead pair makes the movie takes off. Mamitha Baiju is cute as a button and quite surely will have a healthy pipeline of movies at least for the next couple of years. Nasleen gafoor as the hero is quite believable in is role, which could've become an outright loser or arrogant if it was a shade over done. Malayalam movie industry churns out such young talent more often than any one else. The rest of the casting too have meaty scenes and the comedy is neither slap stick nor LOL, but when it happens on the screen, you can never pass without a bare minimal chuckle at the least. The making looks fresh to watch and when you've good looking people, on good looking places, with decent music and comedy, the basic tenets needed for a rom-com success are already satisfied. Story wise it may not be much, but the charishma of Mamitha and the underplayed performance of Gafoor makes it easily connectable. There are hardly any negative situations and bare minimal melodrama with each scene writing itself and not needing to wrack your brain. But you will definitely end up with a smile at the end, which is more than sufficient for a rom-com i guess. Disney Hotstar has landed itself a winner with this one.