Whenever we hear, “Follow your dreams,” the instant visuals that run on our head have always been out-of-the-box jobs like becoming a filmmaker, a game designer or wildlife photographer. In recent times it has been invariably echoed that being different is the key to success and happiness.
Middle-Class Melodies isn’t a tale of people with path-breaking ideas, a vision to transform the world or to make their nation proud. Almost everyone here does jobs that are widely considered ‘mundane’ by the crowd. Yet, seeing these ordinary people, living an ordinary life succeed makes us smile a little wider than the tales of giants and heroes because Middle Class Melodies is a story of most of us or the ones dear to us. Conflicts are the most vital part of a tale.
The blockades faced by the protagonists in films usually crashland in the form of a corporate kingpin or a most-sought gangster. But here it is a stinky pile of a garbage dump, an overgrown tree and a faulty online horoscope generator. Just like the title of the film, the problems faced the people in this universe and the solutions to them are delightfully middle class.
Though everyone in Middle Class Melodies have their fair share of problems in life, they don’t constantly seek solutions to them, they just do what they believe in for another day and hope that the next day will be a better one, just like most of us. Though these issues sound serious and gloomy on paper, director Vinod and writer Janardhan Pasumarthi have made sure that every scene is light-hearted and has a low-key running throughout the story.
RH Vikram’s background score also does a phenomenal job of setting the mood right for every sequence. Every single composition of his stands out and I am pretty sure the BGMs will be running on the audience of the spectator for a long time. The delicious picturisation of the special foods in the Guntur song by Sunny Kurapati and the catchy tune of Sweekar Agasthi will definitely leave a lot of mouths watered.
The brilliant writing of Vinod and Janardhan has been elevated by the performances of the stellar cast. Anand Deverakonda as the driven and innocent Raghava and Varsha Bollamma’s Sandhya are a delight to watch. It felt quite refreshing to see young actors play their age as the emotions they bring to the screen are so uninfluenced and original. Middle Class Melodies is the rare kind of film where the actors in the supporting roles like Chaitanya Garikipati, Goparaju Ramana and Divya Sripada are as effective and memorable as the leads.
It was also quite interesting to see how men in this film have a self-realisation about their flaws and put forth an apology to their female counterparts instantly. We see Raghava and Chaitanya’s Gopal saying that they are flawed, but they are willing to correct themselves in consecutive scenes. Ideally what could have been a needless repetition, feels so organic and essential here, because we haven’t had enough men, especially in rural tales behave this way.
It was also charming to see how the older men in this film also respect their lady loves. Goparaju Ramana’s Kondala Rao nags his wife to massage his feet to ease the pain. Before we could think of it as an act of misogyny we see him volunteering to do the same for his wife the very next day. The subtle gender balance Vinod and Janardhan maintains throughout the film truly deserve a shoutout.
Middle Class Melodies is so beautiful that we wish we can transport into its world and surround ourselves with such hearty people. Calling it a melody feels apt as we will be revisiting this tale numerous times, introduce it to our friends and it is sure to stay in our hearts for a long time.
Middle Class Melodies
Cast: Anand Devarakonda, Varsha Bollamma, Chaitanya Garikipati, Goparaju Ramana
Director: Vinod Ananthoju
Streaming on Amazon Prime