Masthu Shades Unnai Ra Movie Review: A half-baked dramedy that has nothing new to offer

Early on in Masthu Shades Unnai Ra, our protagonist Manu (Abhinav Gomatam) finds himself in a tough spot where he is reminded both of his barriers and limitations. He wants to design something, and has the vision for it, but not the conventional skills. The director’s treatment of this moment implores us to both chuckle and feel sad for this underdog. Just when we begin to feel too sympathetic, our protagonist surprises us by finding a solution for his problem. He literally takes the matter into his own hands, and the result might not be the best, but he owns it. For that moment, he is the master of his destiny. He also, importantly, convinces himself that he can survive despite all barriers.

Director: Thirupathi Rao

Cast: Abhinav Gomatam, Moin, Vaishali Raj, Ali Reza, Nizhalgal Ravi, Aananda Chakrapani, Tharun Bhascker, Jyothi Reddy

MSUR has many of these moments focused on its underdog protagonist, moments that allow him to shine through. MSUR is a conventional underdog tale that unfortunately doesn’t have a deft understanding of how to build on these standalone moments.

Written and directed by Thirupathi Rao, Masthu Shades Unnai Ra revolves around Manu (Abhinav Gomatam), a lower-middle-class man with artistic inclination who is struggling to make something of his life, largely owing to his inferiority complex. After his marriage gets called up owing to the low repute of his work (He paints posters and advertisements on street-side walls for a living), Manu decides to move up in life and open up a flexi-printing business.  The many societal and practical challenges that Manu is faced with while pursuing this new path in his life comprise the rest of the narrative.

Even the most comical of films at their root have a protagonist who is consistently in a soup, but finds a way out of it. Unfortunately, MSUR cannot pick a lane. It has too few laughs to qualify as a comedy and very little hold on its beats and structure to be called a drama. MSUR has a lot going for it, but it is also all over the place.

For the entire first half, MSUR charters a rather conventional trajectory, where every trope employed is predictable in an easy-going, harmless manner. There are dull stretches, but you stay patient with the predictability of it all. However, MSUR totally unravels in the second half. You want to follow Manu and understand what he is undergoing emotionally amidst his self-created web of lies and ruse. Instead, you are forced to move forward blandly with the plot where all the thrills arise out of a series of sticky situations that Manu has to crawl out of.

Predictably enough, MSUR cannot keep up with such an uni-dimensional narrative route, and begins to feel increasingly dragging as we approach the final act. Till the interval, we miss a sense of novelty or a twist on the familiar. Post midpoint, however, what remains is a sad, distant gaze at all the chaotic unravelling of the narrative.

It also doesn’t help that Manu is established as someone who is merely reacting or dealing with every trouble that’s thrown his way. We never get a sense of Manu’s growth through all the hardships and adversities - It makes the journey too obscure for the audience to follow. There is an endearing sincerity that Abhinav Gomatam brings to this part, holding the film together with his earnest presence without attempting to overshadow the proceedings. But both his performance and the film are marred by the lazy, underwritten character arc.

A similar criticism holds true for other characters as well. The film begins with a brief snippet from Manu’s childhood where we see the roots of his insecurity. This stretch gives equal limelight to Manu’s friend Shiva (played by Moin) who is his constant companion and ally. However, even as Manu struggles to redeem himself, we learn nothing of the bond between Manu and Shiva and how it possibly evolved through all these years. Shiva’s role in the narrative is reduced to mere functionality.

Manu’s relationship with Uma (Vaishali Raj) is disappointingly half-baked too. Even as the two begin to get closer while solving a common problem, the reasons for Uma beginning to fall for Manu remain unconvincing.  Uma’s involvement in the narrative later on gets further puzzling. While Manu clearly loves her, he chooses to keep her out of the loop of his skin-saving plan. As a result, Uma often ends up serving as a comic goofball who creates further problems for Manu.

It’s particularly sad because there was a lot of potential here. At a crucial point in the second half, when Manu picks up the paint brush again to pick himself up from a crisis, it could have evolved into a moment with such emotional heft. Now here’s a man who, repeatedly defeated at the hands of life, almost compelled to forego his art for the sake of social repute, finally returns to art as a step towards a better life - if only debutant writer-director Thirupathi Rao knew how to integrate this thrilling moment into the larger arc of his story.

MSUR is littered with many of these loose ends that needed a better tie-in. You eventually carry a handful of moments that leave up with surprise, or even better, hope.

At one point, Many’s entrepreneurial dreams come crashing down about a bout of heavy rains cause a major short-circuit, and he is left with a defunct machine, compelled to deliver a dead baby so to speak - and Manu decides to carry it home. Nobody understands why he doesn’t just abandon it already, but nobody knows what Manu is thinking of at that point. For those few minutes, we stay hopeful about Manu, anticipating how Manu could possibly turn things in his favour now.

For those few moments that the film made me care about Manu and his redemption, it feels tempting, almost obligatory, to say that Masthu Shades Unnai Ra has its heart in the right place.

That, sadly, doesn’t make it an enjoyable watch. Despite some strong moments and a sincere Abhinav Gomatam performance, Masthu Shades Unnai Ra remains generic, a mediocre fare at best.