REVIEW: Life is Beautiful – All In the name of nostalgia
Sekhar Kammula recreates the nostalgia one associates with life in a colony in his latest film Life is Beautiful, but it’s also his weakest film till date.
Life is Beautiful is yet another trademark Sekhar Kammula’s film replete with familiar characters and human emotions which he has been depicting since Anand. The film follows the template set by one of his earlier films Happy Days, although here, the story unfolds in a colony instead of a college. As a result, it’s natural to deduce that Sekhar Kammula has liberally borrowed some subplots and even the twists and turns from Happy Days.
The film opens with Srinivas (Abhijeet) and his sisters being forced to move to Hyderabad by their mother (Amala Akkineni), who promises that she’ll meet them after a year. Soon after arriving in the ‘B’ phase of Sunshine Valley, Srinivas meets Nagaraju (Sudhakar), Abhi (Kaushik), Paddu (Shagun), Lakshmi (Zara) and all of them become good friends. The rest of the story is about the ups and downs in the lives of these characters over the span of next few months.
The film’s biggest strength is its cast and all the newcomers have done a good job. Among the lead actors Sudhakar impresses the most with his exceptionally good histrionics. The film also stars Amala Akkineni, Shriya Saran and Anjala Zaveri in important roles and all three fit their roles to the T. There are some fine moments scattered all over the film, but the excruciatingly long runtime and lack of a strong conflict leave a huge dent on the overall experience of watching the film. There are several loose ends and it leaves an impression that Sekhar Kammula fell in love with his film so much that he didn’t want to drop any scene in the final cut.
Vijay C Kumar’s cinematography and Mickey J Meyer’s music are good. Sekhar Kammula sticks to what he knows best; however, with so many characters and subplots, the film doesn’t really have an strong arc when it comes to storytelling. At best, the film is a series of little vignettes stitched together to make us yearn for our past. The intention behind the film is great, but is that enough to make a good film? The answer is a resounding no.
Category: Arts & Entertainment, Cinema, Tollywood
About the Author (Author Profile)
Hemanth writes primarily about Telugu cinema, although he finds inspiration from the works of filmmakers like Woody Allen. Apart from writing, he spends most of his time on Twitter discussing about cinema, travel and life in Hyderabad.
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- life is beautiful movie : The Latest Fuzz | September 15, 2012
- life is beautiful movie review : The Latest Fuzz | September 14, 2012
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Perfect review Hemanth. It is indeed Sekhar Kammula’s weakest film.