Happy Wedding – Movie Review

What’s it about!
Anand Virat (Sumanth Ashwin), an ad filmmaker in Vijayawada and Akshara (Niharika) fall in love, their parents agree to their relationship and fix a wedding. Soon after their engagement, Akshara the indecisive starts doubting whether Anand is correct for her or not as he’s not as attentive towards her before engagement. Why did she feel so? Because he didn’t come to pick up her when she comes to Vijayawada instead he asked her to come to his office by auto. Further spurring her confusion, her former boyfriend Vijay (Raja Chembolu) starts friendship with her. Still, she participates in all the wedding preparations and celebrations but she is unsure. Will she finally marry Anand?
 
Analysis
 
In Sooraj Barjatya’s movies, families sitting together and playing ‘antyakshari’ used to be the common feature and many Telugu movies followed the same trend in late 90’s and early 2000’s.
 
In this so-called “contemporary” love story “Happy Wedding” starring Sumanth Ashwin and Niharika as the lead pair, we see similar scenes except that here families mouth poems instead of songs.
 
After the arrival of writer Trivikram in Tollywood, the stories of a heroine falling in love with another guy (who happens to be hero of the movie) after getting engaged to the guy chosen by their parents became a regular feature.
 
In “Happy Wedding”, the difference is that heroine starts confusing about her choice after the engagement though she entered into this relationship after falling in love with him.
 
Much of our Telugu movie stories and scenes don’t change much except that they take new form within old setup is the point we are trying to say here. “Happy Wedding” looks contemporary but the sequences are quite old, and mostly boring. 

The film begins with a boy (Sumanth Ashwin) and a girl (Niharika) coming to a pub, the girl gulps down vodka shots and boy drinks soft drink. Then comes the punch dialogue: “Ammayilu mundukeltunnarankunna mandukeltunnaru”. There is a casualness towards girl drinking. Such modern thoughts, but the later portions are not as modern.

The heroine’s dilemma, her confusion, her insecurities, her fears seem to be coming from her ‘immaturity’. This is why we don’t get connected to her ‘true feelings’.
 
The new director Lakshman Karya packages the movie with many punch jokes and ‘preachy’ dialogues. None of the characters have normal conversation but talk in cinematic way. Which is why the film doesn’t look ‘natural’ at any moment. Added to this, the frames are flashy, most of the scenes happen in bright indoor atmosphere, or LED-lit roads. All flashy, not real.
 
Moreover, the wafer thin drama has no  interesting turns or twists, it begins on expected lines and ends in predictable manner. And it is dialogue heavy, no subtle moments at all. Also lengthy. The second half really tests the patience. Sometimes it looks like a short film extended beyond a point, and sometimes confuses us if this is a mini web series.
 
Sumanth Ashwin and Niharika both have looked good together but there is nothing much to talk about their performances. Naresh and Murali Sharma have given matured performances. Tulasi and Pavitra Lokesh are good. Raja in a brief role is neat. Indraja’s character is poorly developed. Niharika’s friend’s character has got Telangana accent completely wrong, it is theatrical, not natural.
 
Bal Reddy’s cinematography is bright and flashy. Set work is also similar. Editing is smooth but it needs lot of trimming. Some dialogues are good but the writer seems to have habit of adding rhyming words in every sentence. Lakshman Karya’s direction is pretty average.
 
Bottom-line: ‘Happy Wedding’ is all about plastic romance, plastic emotions. It is much like extended short film with wafer thin plot of a young woman with insecurities that come from her past relationship. It drags on post interval.