‘Manmadhudu 2’ review: Something amiss in this rom-com

Vennela Kishore steals the show with his impeccable comic timing

Nagarjuna and Rakul Preet Singh

A highlight of Manmadhudu (2002) was its comedy featuring Nagarjuna and Brahmanandam. A singular aspect that stands out in Manmadhudu 2 is, again, the comedy. Some of the portions featuring Nagarjuna and Vennela Kishore are hilarious. The two actors are in sync and Kishore conveys so much with minute gestures. These portions hold the film together when the narrative struggles to rise above its predictable turns.

Manmadhudu 2 has a lot more comedy than romance. While the comedy works, the rest of it is sadly, listless. In the process of trying to keep the film a breezy entertainer, the gravitas of some of the characters never come through and hence, it’s tough to empathise with them.

This official remake of the French film

I Do takes the basic storyline and Indianises it. Sam aka Sambasiva Rao (Nagarjuna) is a perfumer by profession and an aged bachelor who has a way with women; he’s game for consensual flings but hates the idea of a relationship. When his family pressurises him to get married, he does the most predictable thing — hires someone to act as his lady love and plots how to foil his family’s plans. Expectedly, the plan backfires. This story is not new and the onus is on the narration.

The setting is a Telugu family that moved to Cassandra, Portugal, in the late 1920s and holds on dearly to its cultural and linguistic identity. Their Telugu is so unadulterated that Indians who have moved there recently struggle to understand some of the words. This detailing lends itself to some humour.

What doesn’t work is the flimsy reason cited for Sam’s bachelorhood. There’s a throwback to the time he brings home his first girlfriend (Keerthy Suresh in a cameo). All that his mother (Lakshmi), older sisters Swarnalatha (Jhansi), Sangeetha (Devadarshini) and younger sister Shweta (Nishanthi) can ask her is if she can cook and clean! She’s a medical student who doesn’t want only household chores to define her marital life. She walks out. Sam decides to stay a bachelor than going through the ordeal again.

Manmadhudu 2

• Cast: Nagarjuna, Rakul Preet Singh, Vennela Kishore
• Direction: Rahul Ravindran
• Music: Chaitan Bharadwaj

This whole discussion of household chores continues for a while. Though Sam moves out of the house and has an OCD for cleanliness, apparently it’s his sisters who visit him often and do all the housekeeping! Despite growing up in a European nation where house help is a luxury, Sam never learnt to partake in these responsibilities. The sisters and the mother use these issues as a tool to bargain. Maybe all this is in the name of humour, but it didn’t augur well.

Beneath this veneer, there are moments that underline the mother’s concern — she doesn’t want her son to grow old alone and wallow in emotional vacuum. Lakshmi aces these portions and the narrative could have explored the mother-son bond a little more effectively than taking the clichéd route to the hospital.

Avantika (Rakul Preet Singh) holds up a mirror to Sam’s inadequacies. He has what Avantika yearns for — a loving family. Behind that rebellious look, Avantika is a girl in turmoil. Rakul delivers an endearing and moving performance, especially in the final portions. I also wondered if the impact of her performance would have been stronger had she dubbed on her own. Chinmayi does a great job of adding the emotional depth required for the character, but having heard her voice largely for Samantha in recent years, hearing her speak for Rakul took some getting used to. On his part, Nagarjuna shows how he can pull off a tricky part and make it appear classy.

Jhansi, Devadarshini and Akshara add credence to their performances. Rao Ramesh features in a character who can play spoilsport and rain on a parade. He suspects something fishy and keeps saying “ ekkado theda koduthundi ” but nothing happens.

Brahmanandam features in a blink-and-miss scene (as Suribabu Lavangam from Manmadhudu ) and quips that he had to wait for 17 years to get even with Nagarjuna. However, the lack of wit in this scene is a dampener.

Cinematographer Sukumar works with a soothing colour palette and Chaitan Bharadwaj puts forth a hummable album.

Manmadhudu 2 had the potential to be a lot more interesting. At the time of filing this review, news trickled in that Rahul Ravindran won the National Award for Best Original Screenplay for his directorial debut, Chi la Sow . That was a heartwarming film, and an emphatic statement of Rahul’s potential as a writer and director. Manmadhudu 2 doesn’t live up to that promise and here’s hoping that with the next one, Rahul will be back in form.