Movie: Needi Naadi Oke Katha
Cast: Sree Vishnu, Satna Titus
Director: Venu Udugula
Rating: 3 /5 stars
Needi Naadi Oke Katha articulates the emotional journey of a young man Sagar (Sree Vishnu) who likes to follow his heart rather than aiming for something big. Sagar was always humiliated by his father, who was highly influenced by society and believes in leading a disciplined life with prestige. He insists Sagar to clear the arrears and settle down in life with a reputed job. A self-proclaimed Rip Van Winkle, Sagar does exactly opposite – follows a relaxed lifestyle, kills time playing cricket with his friends and foolishly ruins his father’s reputation.
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He finds remorse and tries to redeem his relationship with his father with the help of his friend Dharmika (Satna Titus), who gets him through to a motivational speaker and author Ram V Sekhar (Posani Krishna Murali). Much to his dismay, Sagar couldn’t succeed and makes his father more restless.
Debutant Venu Udugula has chosen a contemporary story and portrayed human emotions in a realistic manner. He stuck to his story with honesty and doesn’t sensationalise the drama nor glorify any character or doesn’t make the protagonist to become an anti-social element. But, the father could have tried to love his son more than his prestige and fear for society.
The father-son face-off and a husband blaming wife when their children don’t excel in their academics, children craving for love from their parents are really in sync with reality. It’s definitely one such good film that succeeds in transporting you to its story while you are in the theatre still watching it.
What’s so remarkable about this film is it accurately reflects the characters and events occurred at some point in one’s life. The character of Sree Vishnu is relatable to every youngster who was never driven by a strong desire to succeed and always likes to do things that makes him happy.
There’s no false bravura, heroism and entertainment and the director followed most pragmatic approach you could ever imagine. The film doesn’t fall into the commercial trappings and offers a refreshing story that tugs at your heartstrings.
Performances are one of the major strengths of the film. Sree Vishnu is spectacular and brings a lot of variation with his histrionics and body language as a Rayalaseema youth. The director wonderfully played on Vishnu’s strengths and focused more on the character’s anguish and the helplessness he has to go through to mend his ways with his father.
Devi Prasad is a revelation and gave an assured performance with poise. To be honest, it’s not just Vishnu and Devi Prasad, others like Satna Titus, Roopa Lakshmi (Sagar’s mother) and his sister doesn’t evoke any boredom and bring in so much to the film.
Even though the run-time is 121-minutes, the only problem with the film is it drags in the second hour and at times you find your attention wavering. So, if it would have been 10-15 minutes shorter, it would have been a masterpiece.
This film’s strong content was ably supported by technical superiority. Cinematography by Raj Thota is exquisite and he has beautifully captured rustic visuals. The music and the background score by Suresh Bobbili use the situations magnificently and elevate the mood of the narrative.
Few films stay with you the way this one does. It’s a film every single one of us should watch. Go, see yourself.
— Murali Krishna CH
muralikrishna.db@newindianexpress
@onlymurali