Review of movie Chitralahari

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Rating:3/5


With Chitralahari, Kishore Tirumala takes up the gargantuan task of holding the audience’s interest while telling a tried and tested tale – that of an underdog who’s branded a loser by society but is in reality nothing short of a genius inventor. Unfortunately, he also tries to add threads filled with love, unnecessary conflict, judgemental friends and neighbours, inspirational soliloquys and more into this simple tale, complicating it more than needed. 

On the surface, the film seems like a simple tale, that of Vijay (Sai Dharam Tej) who invents a path-breaking device that can save lives, but is somehow never taken seriously enough by anyone, except for his loving father (Posani Krishna Murali). He cannot get through life without downing a drink at the end of the day with his ‘glassmate’ Mike (Sunil), a dreamer who wants to be a lyricist and singer someday. But thrown into the mix is also Lahari (Kalyani Priyadarshan), the love of his life who’s easily swayed by those around her who point fingers at Vijay and his failures. She cannot take a single decision for herself, causing unnecessary friction in their relationship. Sweccha (Nivetha Pethuraj) is Lahari’s childhood friend, jaded by incidents in her life and judgemental about every minute thing. 

Chitralahari is a well-intentioned film that starts out wanting to tell the story of an underdog who does not give up till he reaches his goal, ably supported by his father. Unfortunately, halfway through, it also turns into a melodramatic story where characters and plot points are introduced to no end and life lessons learnt from every other scene. The narrative that starts out not taking itself too seriously and in lighter vein soon turns drab and melodramatic, with the overblown climax being the cherry-on-top.