Sundarakanda Movie Review:

Rarely do we get a film in Telugu cinema that makes us chew on uncomfortable meat. Venkatesh Nimmalapudi's Sundarakanda is a film that dares to poke at the festering wound of age-gap romance in Telugu cinema whilst simultaneously applying all the wrong bandages. Its title is both a nod and a burden, borrowing weight from Venkatesh and K Raghavendra Rao’s Sundarakanda (1992), another work that dabbled in unorthodox relationships. What we have here is a film split in half, at times thoughtful, at other times deeply embarrassing. It’s been a while since I’ve felt such polar opposite emotions about the same film.

Director: Venkatesh Nimmalapudi

Cast: Nara Rohith, Sridevi Vijaykumar, Vriti Vaghani, Naresh, Satya

Before delving into Sundarakanda’s emotional geography, I have to talk about the elephant in Telugu cinema's drawing room. The age gap between heroes and heroines has long been a source of discomfort for discerning audiences. A fifty-year-old star chasing a woman young enough to be his daughter is, sadly, a weekly occurrence. Sundarakanda deserves recognition for confronting this discomfort head-on, even if its execution stumbles at many points. The question is not whether romances with an age gap can be told, but whether they can be narrated with honesty.

The premise itself carries a delicious perversity that would make even the most seasoned cinephile raise an eyebrow. Siddharth, played by Nara Rohith, is a middle-aged bachelor so obsessed with an idealised version of his partner, five specific qualities he fell for in his older school senior Vyshnavi (Sridevi Vijay Kumar), that he's rejected every matrimonial proposal thrown his way. When he encounters young Eira (Vriti Vaghani) at an airport and finds her ticking all his boxes, the film sets up what initially appears to be yet another tired older man-younger woman romance. But then comes the twist that transforms this from a mere indulgence into something altogether more complex and morally ambiguous. It’s impossible to review this film without revealing the spoiler, watch the film and then read this review. The glaring surprise in the film: Eira is Vyshnavi's daughter.

Sundarakanda’s plot could have been mined for genuine psychological insight, exploring the cyclical nature of desire and the ways in which we project our unfulfilled longings onto unsuitable people and turn them into objects in our head, unintentionally. Instead, Nimmalapudi seems uncertain whether he's making a mature examination of human folly or a commercial entertainer, and this fundamental confusion undermines most promising moments of the film.

The first half commits the cardinal sin of treating its age-gap romance with the same not-a-big-deal romanticism that has poisoned Telugu cinema for decades. Watching Rohith's Siddharth stalk a college student around Vishakapatnam, complete with the usual song-and-dance routines, feels not just repulsive but also lacking faith in today’s audiences. This is not the language in which this story should have been told. The film needed the artistic, observational touch of a Sankarabharanam or the mature comical sensibility of K Raghavendra Rao's Sundarakanda (1992), not the crude mechanics of commercial cinema.

Yet, once the central revelation hits at interval point, something shifts. The second half finds Nimmalapudi dealing more honestly with the ethical implications of his premise, as Siddharth must navigate the impossible situation of pursuing his childhood crush's daughter whilst concealing his identity from both women. These portions work because they acknowledge the inherent moral complexity of the situation rather than trying to romanticise it away. And Nimmalapudi is a fine screenwriter, who doesn’t leave any loose end. Every setup has a payoff.

Sundarakanda's most perceptive moments come when it examines the hollowness of Siddharth's romantic idealism. His admission that he admires actors like Mrunal Thakur and Keerthy Suresh not for their performances or appearance but for the mythic roles they've played, Sita and Savitri, reveals something profound about how commercial cinema has warped masculine desire. Men, who grew up on a Telugu cinema diet, don't want women, they want fairytales. It’s the male version of ‘Shining knight on a unicorn.’ It's a critique that cuts to the bone of Telugu cinema's treatment of female characters, though the film doesn't push this insight as much as it should have.

Nara Rohith remains the film's biggest liability. Sure, his choice of cinema has always been admirable but the problem is his performative ability. An actor of limited range even on his best day, he's grossly miscast here, lacking both the charisma to make Siddharth's romantic pursuits believable and the vulnerability to make his eventual self-realisation feel earned. The role demanded someone who could embody graceful charm, foolish romanticism and genuine pathos, Rohith delivers none of those. You know immediately that a more suitable actor could have made this a beautiful film.

Sridevi Vijaykumar brings a lived-in grace to Vyshnavi, managing to convince both as the teenage crush in flashbacks and the single mother in the present. Vriti Vaghani has a natural ease that makes Eira's attraction to an older man at least partially credible, though the character is written as unbelievably wise beyond her years. It's Satya who emerges as the film's secret weapon, providing not just comic relief but serving as a reality check after every ambiguous scene.

The tragedy of Sundarakanda is that, buried within its conventional structure lies a genuinely provocative examination of desire, projection, and the stories we tell ourselves about love. A braver film might have abandoned commercial format entirely, choosing instead to sit with its characters' discomfort. The questions, what does admiration mean, where does fantasy end and love begin, and how do we handle desire when it points the wrong way, are left largely unexplored. Nimmalapudi settles for a halfway house, neither fully commercial nor probing.

And yet, I find myself unwilling to dismiss Sundarakanda. It is uneven, often embarrassing, sometimes graceful. It gives us glimpses of a better film within it, and if nothing else, it pushes Telugu cinema a little further into uncomfortable terrain. That is not a small thing. Art, after all, should be allowed to make us squirm. And Venkatesh Nimmalapudi is a writer-director to watch out for.