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When Sarayu (Reba Monica John) asks the family she is living with as a paying guest to treat her as one of their own, it feels odd for the next fifteen minutes or so, till we get a reason in the form of Balu (Sree Vishnu), the boy she eventually falls in love with. The answer snowballs into an ongoing theme when we meet her Rajahmundry-based family in the second half and have their proclivity for familial bonds be driven home, only for it to circle back to Balu and Sarayu.
There is a lot of love and family in the film, just not in the ways one can imagine them together. As the film unfolds over its two-hour odd runtime, Balu’s relationship with Sarayu is but the catalyst that enables many of the film’s other love stories to emerge — the love for families, the love for love marriages (and the loops they go through to find acceptance in India) and the love for rhyme-y, dialogue-heavy, observational comedy specific to Telugu cinema — that makes the film stand out as a noteworthy example in the family entertainer genre with writing that refuses to take anything, most of it itself, for granted.
Family entertainers are technically not a genre, if anything they can be characterised by its inability to adhere to the norms of a single genre, crunching action, comedy, romance and drama into one standalone feature. In other words, family entertainers are the cinematic equivalent of multi-cuisine restaurants, the proverbial jackfruit of all, master chef of none. Full disclosure, Samajavaragamana does not fare entirely well either with its all-too-obvious Ramoji Film City sets or cut-to-foreign location songs (this time it is the Sultanate of Oman), all of which serve as reminders of how this genre is practically a relic. But there are some surprises in store — like when we see Bala’s father (A very funny Naresh) struggle to pass his degree exams for three decades. There are enough jokes on how a man at his age is still struggling to pass college (“shashtipoorthi cheskune vayasu lo degree poorthi chesthunaaru enti”) but this is followed with some due urgency. Being a college graduate is what stands between him and a large inheritance, which his other siblings have gotten long back, an event that results in Balu’s extended family sharing haves vs have-nots dynamic on full blast.
Balu is seen as the sole breadwinner of his middle-class unit, working as a manager in a multiplex. In typical breadwinner fashion, he does not switch on lights when they are not needed, frowns upon buying multiplex popcorn and rarely takes leaves (he is seen at his workplace two hours after attending a wedding). Here is where the director takes his time through the first half to voice his support for the men who choose responsibilities over overarching displays of romance. In another part of the film, there is also some bawdy humour that mocks teenage girls falling in love with auto drivers and chaat bandi guys, to add on to the film’s stance against the love that treads the path of impulsiveness and irresponsibility.
While this is arguably the inner voice of this filmmaker (and many men), it also provides narrative padding to Sree Vishnu’s inability to come off as a boyfriend convincingly. One would not have questioned the actor here, for not turning into 90s Shah Rukh Khan when the occasion demanded him to, but it is nice to know that we get explanations that are actually just a part of the story.
Samajavaragamana turns into a different beast in its second half, when Balu and Sarayu can neither sell their union as a love marriage or an arranged one. Here is where the film’s themes take centrestage, as we witness the comical yet commonplace phenomena of love-cum-arranged marriages and its undoing. The latter portions of the film also opt for some commentary on caste, through the characters played by Vennela Kishore and Rajeev Kanakala. Much like 2019’s Evarikee Cheppodu (whose main lead Rakesh Varre bears some resemblance to Sree Vishnu), there are no caste names mentioned out loud. One can say they are playing it safe here (even K Viswanath and Srikanth Addala never mentioned the castes of their characters in Swayamkrushi and Seethamma Vakitlo Sirimalle Chettu, deploying subtext instead) but, choosing against citing certain castes also serves a particular (well-intentioned but debatable) message well. Discrimination is as discrimination does. As of now, this is the furthest Telugu cinema can move forward in its depiction of angst against the evils of caste-based prejudice.
Samajavaragamana’s comedy is one of its biggest strengths, playing to the gallery while being extremely self aware. Just when you think for the umpteenth time about the ubiquity of rhyming dialogues in Telugu cinema, the film’s writers also join you for a moment, by referencing Trivikram himself — with a gleeful clapback to the “rendu chethulu jebulo pettukuni… dialogue. Lakshman Tekumudi, whose very claim to fame is reviewing films outside the Prasads multiplex in a series of rhyming lines, weighs in as well, featuring in a meta appearance in the film as an eve-teaser.
There are gleeful clapbacks to films and memes, in addition to observational humour, satire and your classic blue comedy, all of which makes this film a strong contender for a theatre watch. Samajavaragamana’s writing really makes one wonder. If this is what can be achieved with a genre so familiar and choc-a-bloc with cliches, then why aren’t people doing it more often? Why is good writing rare? If writing is what can make or break a film…if proper screenwriting is less serendipitous and more in one’s control than star power or extravagant budgets, then why are writers so underpaid? Why are writers on strike in another part of the world? In a film with so much to say about many social issues, this is yet another message that comes off without much effort.
Samajavaragamana
Cast: Sree Vishnu, Reba Monica John, Sudarshan, Sreekanth Iyyengar, Vennela Kishore
Director: Ram Abbaraju
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
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