Ron Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally (1989) is still among the best coming-of-age rom-coms. We’ve seen several of its spin-offs and inspirations in Indian cinema. Director Kunal Kohli gave this template a Bollywood-like treatment in Hum Tum (2004), helped by the sprightly Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherji.
- Cast: Sundeep Kishan, Tamannaah Bhatia and Navdeep
- Direction: Kunal Kohli
Some 14 years later, Kunal Kohli revisits that genre through today’s men and women who are at the crossroads of relationships and shying away from long-term commitment. In his first Telugu film, Kunal Kohli gets his lead actors to talk about growing up, sex and insecurities. A great idea, considering how rarely we see that in a Telugu film.
But, at the end of the film that’s just over two hours, I felt they should have titled it ‘Let’s Talk’. Somewhere in between, when Krish (a salt and pepper Navdeep) tells Tammy (Tamannaah) “we’ve been talking for six hours”, we nod in agreement. All that talking did feel that long.
What could have been a rom-com with Mars Vs. Venus repartee leading to some introspection, ends up as a talkathon. That’s a pity, for several reasons. The story is driven by the child-woman Tammy. Tamanaah is the central character while the men in her life — Sanju (Sundeep Kishan) and Krish — step back a little. It’s also rare to see the father character in Telugu cinema (essayed by Sharath Babu) tell his daughter to not compare her future life partner with the father. In a Telugu film, it’s also rare to see the father buying sanitary pads for the daughter who’s on the verge of turning an adolescent.
The father-daughter segment is narrated beautifully, but maybe they shouldn’t have tried to pass off Tamanaah as a 13-year-old, even for a few minutes. At 16, Tammy declares ‘I hate boys’ and that thought stays with her years later as she wriggles out of relationships. There are several layers to Tammy. She’s rightfully assertive when she isn’t comfortable getting physical. She’s also muddled up on other fronts and realises that her now-warm, now-cold persona can stifle the partner. But she isn’t apologetic. Maybe she’d end up being a runaway bride someday, we don’t know.
Had Next Enti? been written and narrated better, it could have been a refreshing departure from the regular potboilers. As Tammy says ‘more real and not cinematic’. But the way it is, it’s a yawn. The silver lining is the background score by Leon James and Tamannaah giving it her best and speaking her own lines. Sundeep pulls off those typical male conversations with ease. The surprise factor is Navdeep, impressive in his limited portions.
Tamannaah now and then breaks the fourth wall to converse with the audience. If only they hadn’t made her character talk so much, it would have been bearable.
