Colour Photo Movie Review: An impressive, hard-hitting love story

Colour Photo is the kind of love story where a pure-hearted youngster (Kannayya, played by Suhas) meets his lady love (Deepthi, played by Chandini Chowdhary) only to talk about the memories of his late mother. This idea would have felt superficial or dramatic in another film. But the brilliant dialogues and performances turn this scene into one of the highpoints of this hard-hitting, tragic love story.

Cast: Suhas, Chandini Chowdary, Sunil
Direction: Sandeep Raj
Streaming on: Aha

The story begins in the mid-2000s, in San Francisco, where Deepthi is introduced as an emotionally dysfunctional person. The shot where she begins to play instead of weep for her dead father conveys that she has been through a lot of cruelty because of her family. She sees no redemption for her elder brother Rama Raju (Sunil) and has no heart to even shed a few tears. 

Back in the late 1990s, Suhas' Kannayya aka Jayakrishna lives with big dreams. He sells milk and looks after his poor father. When the kind-hearted and hardworking Kannayya bumps into Deepthi, the film turns into a typical love-at-first-sight story. It's only before the interval that they get to talk with each other at length. They promise each other their eternal love, in front of a poster of Venkatesh-Soundarya's Pavithra Bandham, which in a way acts as their sole witness.

The trailer of the film suggested the female lead would be timid, but she turns out to be something else. Even though constant suffering has made her pale, she keeps her empathy intact. When she meets two young lovers seeking help, she cooks up a story inspired by the climax of Nuvvu Nenu to save them. The unusual, yet interesting scene brims with the writer's imagination.

At a time when Telugu films seem to not take dialogue-writing seriously, Colour Photo gives us at least a handful of memorable lines. It's refreshing to see that the friendship segment isn't a series of vacuous and immature banter. Viva Harsha's reaction during a crucial moment in the climax is shockingly poignant. 

On the flip side, the film lacks in a few areas. Sunil's character goes missing for a good part of the film. In his attempt to showcase the male lead as the personification of purity, director Sandeep Raj resorts to cliches that are a letdown. 

For a film that has got a strong climax, Colour Photo suffers from a couple of shocking shortcomings. There are several stretches of scenes that really don't add anything to the story. There is also a problematic angle. Apart from the heroine's brother, there are at least two characters who use a racial slur against the male protagonist and it looks highly contrived. A good amount of screentime is wasted in propping up the senior character in the college portion, just to establish him as a red-herring. The sequence with the two doppelgangers of the villain also feels needless and the fight scene between the senior and juniors in college is amateurish. 

However, overall, Colour Photo is a well-acted film that is supported by the winsome background score of Kaala Bhairava and satisfying cinematography of Venkat R Shakamuri.