Thelavarithe Guruvaram Movie Review: A couple of hits and a lot of misses

Thellavarithe Guruvaram is based on the novel Pellikoduku Lechipoyadu by popular Telugu novelist Suryadevara Rammohan Rao. While the plot is taken from a novel, the movie doesn't care about introducing any novel ideas to take the story forward. It tries to construct a comedy-of-errors narrative, but falls flat on its face by taking a few things too seriously. In a comedy, when laugh-out-loud moments are too few, the monotony kicks in. While some satirical comedies require such staging and screenplay, this film did not.

The film takes a while to get going and at close to 120 minutes, it feels a little long. Too much time is spent at the beginning on sequences like Sethu's (Ajay) ritualistic episode, making Madhu (Misha) survive the bumpy roads with Veerendra (Simha), and breaking Misha's husband phobia.

The film unfolds in Thadepallygudem where arrangements are in full swing for the wedding of Veerendra and Madhu. However, this was pretty much against the wishes of Veerendra, who harbours feelings for orthopaedic doctor Krishna (Chitra Lahari). They decide to elope, but their plans go awry when she ends up being confused over their relationship. That’s when Veerendra is forced to meet wacky and immature Madhu in an odd circumstance. What follows next is a series of comical errors, where both start to understand each other.

The performances from the main stars, Simha and Misha, are a bit hit and miss. Misha is too flat and coos through a character that demands more hysterics. Sri Simha has done his role justice despite his character not being properly etched, while Satya reprises a variant of Sunil’s role from Manmadhudu. The rest of the supporting cast are never more than background noise.

A major problem with this kind of comedy-of-errors storyline is that it only works on short films, where they can be set up and resolved promptly. Trying to drag out a plot based on mix-ups and misunderstandings for nearly two hours will reach a point where you want to shriek at the characters to stop dragging things every few minutes. But no, they have to just keep adding more and more things.

With stereotypes taking over the original ideas, Thelavarithe Guruvaram tends to stick to what you can accept and digest easily rather than extracting humour from impossible and unlikely situations. While a comedy like Jathiratnalu worked due to its whacky freshness, this one spirals down the easy path and drags on for the entire runtime without any rhyme or reason.