Kerintha Review

Behind the Movie Kerintha: Off late Dil Raju took a break from production. This ‘Kerintha’ initiated nearly seven years ago has finally arrived in theaters under Sai Kiran Adivi direction with Sumanth Ashwin and his young team in main leads supported by Mickey J Meyer’s music. Let us see, how beautiful this ‘Kerintha’ is?

In the Movie Kerintha: Story begins as a narration from well settled Nookaraju (Parvatheesham), coming back to college to recollect the happy memories. Nookaraju hails from Srikakulam region with a side splitting dialect. His gang of friends, Jai (Sumanth Ashwin), Bhavana (Sukrithi), Siddharth aka Sid (Vishwanath), Priya (Tejaswini Madivada) belong to the same college pursuing different courses.

After friendship, what is next? It’s the love between Bhavana and Nookaraju; Sid and Priya. In parallel, Jai also searches for his pure love towards junior Doctor Manaswini (Sri Divya). 

What are the real goals for each of them? What are those happy, fun filled, learning moments in their college lives? 

Values of the Movie Kerintha: Stories gyrating around college campus and pure, unadulterated friendships have been initiated as a trend by Sekhar Kammula with ‘Happy Days.’ Eight years down the memory lane, Dil Raju and Sai Kiran Adivi still thinks there is a viable space for same feel good emotions to sell in present day market. Nevertheless, this project is actually brought into action by Dil Raju team in 2008 and it took eight long years for taking a final shape. 

Creative team at Dil Raju’s SVC has done a terrible research so as to make ‘Kerintha’ a product on par with ‘Happy Days.’ Characters behave almost identical to that of Sekhar Kammula’s reality based situations and each of the story tracks look analogous to ‘Happy Days.’ So, Sai Kiran Adivi has consciously thrown ‘Kerintha’ to cut-and-dried comparison with evergreen ‘Happy Days.’ Sai lacked in having a novel story while his poetic direction skills came in handy.  Abburi Ravi dialogues have become the real strength of film in critical situations. Vijay K Chakravathy’s camera has done a majestic work with a fresh look visible throughout. Editing by Madhu should have been firm in many portions. Mickey J Meyer is master for this sort of films. His tunes here are of course recycled yet his commendable RR means a lot which lifted the simple emotions to stupefying level. Production values of Dil Raju are just magnificent. Though the lion share of film is shot with in the campus, it’s just because of Dil Raju we see great grandeur in visuals.  

On performance front, Sumanth Ashwin got a settled, composed and easy going character. He desperately downsized the energy levels as exhibited in past bringing in the needed maturity. Sri Divya looked pretty cute with no big scope to show her artistry. Vishwanath is a rework of Tyson and his innocent smiling face is good to watch. Tejaswi Madivada got enough screen presence with half baked character. Srikaulam guy Parvatheesham is best among all. His note-perfect Srikaulam dialect timing is sure to win the hearts. Sukrithi has an expressive face and she is good in every frame. Pragathi is authentic as strict mother of Vishwanath. Then there is Anitha Chowdary, Sameer, Priya, Nithya Naresh in respective roles. 

Out of the Movie Kerintha: There is no harm on Sai Kiran Adivi to inspire from Sekhar Kammula. Lack of originality could have done the damage but characterization drives are balanced with decent execution and simple screenplay. Whatsoever, Sai executed the drama with required levels of relishness. In spite of heavy thoughtful lines mouthed by these budding actors, the situations look well fabricated. Loss of curiosity in narration is of course symmetrically managed by rich visuals.

Yet all the six lead characters will take you on a gentle stroll which mars all the drawbacks. Old or new, emotions are emotions and Telugu youth easily connect with it.  

For all those who have watched ‘Happy Days, Life is Beautiful’ countless times on small screen, ‘Kerintha’ is a sweet reminiscence. Despite Dil Raju’s hard efforts and lengthy dedication to make this project happen, it fulfilled his creative vision with strong hold on emotional efficiency. A well worked out climax, Parvatheesham’s fun generating character, neat camera work and soothing musical score are the real binding elements. If you have a batch of friends inquiring to burn the time in cinema hall, give it a try.

Cinejosh Verdict of Kerintha: It’s Happy Days Again!

                                                        Cinejosh Rating: 3.0/5.0  

                                                                 Reviewed by Srivaas