Ranga Ranga Vaibhavanga

non-consensual behavior

• Cast: Vaishnav Tej, Ketika Sharma, Naveen Chandra
• Director: Gireesaaya
• Music Director: Devi Sri Prasad

Radha and Rishi have an on and off relationship. When they are finally ready to be together, their families fall apart causing them distress. Rishi and Radha attempt to resolve their conflict to return the families together.

Although an old one, this was a fun and simple story with rich ideas of friendship and relationships. The love story between Radha and Rishi could have used some updating.

• Direction: The story delivery was inept. Characters that should already be well aware of what was happening had redundant conversations so that the audience could understand. This communication, while common in Telugu cinema, makes the characters look dull and unrealistic. There was good chemistry generated between the two families. The interactions between Rishi and Radha took a higher priority than the storyline. This resulted in multiple odd scenes that were forced and predictable. Walking backward, for example, from their vehicles became cringe instead of cute. The chase sequence towards the end was overthought, rendering it eye-roll-worthy and too long.
• Acting: It seems like Vaishnav Tej is attempting to emulate his uncle Chiranjeevi. Whether or not he will continue to rely on his mannerisms is something we are yet to see. His performance is underwhelming as he doesn’t appear to be invested in the lines he is saying. Naveen Chandra does well as an egotistical politician. The cast of Radha’s and Rishi’s families was excellent, bringing relatable affections and successfully pulling the audience into rooting for them. Competing with Vaishnav Tej, Ketika Sharma gave a bad performance, overall beating him in giving the most plastic expressions.
• Cinematography: Although there were multiple well-done shots that were attempting to convince the audience of Rishi’s greatness, they weren’t enough to make up for his performance. Otherwise, the cinematography supported the story well.
• Production Design: The very first shot of the two identical houses is obviously not real, this should have been better considering how important that setting is for the movie. The attempt to set scenes after dark wasn’t enough, it was apparent that it was a blue filter over scenes taken under bright light. There were green-screen shots that were unnecessary and too obvious. The costumes of Rishi and Radha were a nice touch – with them being coordinated when they were together and not otherwise.
• Editing: Some transitions were particularly awkward with clever ideas and poor execution. Multiple scenes and shots, especially of Rishi, were too long. The movie was consistently predictable. It overall looked like it was made by an amateur.
• Music: The main background tune that played behind Rishi and Radha captured the playful nature of their relationship and was very catchy. Other songs were good but not remarkable.
• Dialogues: A large chunk of the dialogue from the characters was spent communicating to the audience instead of each other. This gave away what was about to happen and distracted the audience because the characters spoke unnaturally.
• Themes: The movie focused on friendship, family, and heteronormative relationships.

• There is a line between occasional nostalgic throwbacks and heavy reliance. Being born at the same moment, babies not going after objects at annaprasanas – these are gimmicks that were considered cute over a decade ago. Rishi and Radha’s interaction after they reunite and give each other identical gifts is extremely artificial because of their attempt to make it playful and childish.
• You can show that people are physicians-in-training without hanging a stethoscope around their necks, you need not convince anyone.
• The foreshadowing in the first half was extremely obvious and disappointing.  There were exaggerated references to the two friends and their families’ happiness being contagious which made it obvious that at some point, they would separate.
• Interesting that there is no warning regarding cigarette smoking when the main character – a physician – smoked through a significant duration of the movie.
• It was nice to see the family members’ individuality coming out in the second half.
• The music was too much sometimes, trying to elevate scenes that had no potential of deserving praise.

No. There are better things out there.

This movie had the potential to be a less toxic Ninne Pelladtha, filling us with nostalgia and warmth but poor execution and focus on Rishi made it a boring watch.

• Favorite moment: When Rishi unknowingly throws water onto Arjun – this was a well-timed transition.
• If the terraces are close enough to say cheers and pass snacks from one end to another, why not pass the bottle of alcohol from there as well?
• Radha and Rishi behaved with utter disregard for their friends and the people around them, allowing their supposed feud to disturb everyone.
• Rishi isn’t really that great of a guy. He is disrespectful to his friends and is misogynistic. He continued to belittle Radha and refuses to take blame for his mistakes. When Radha’s plan doesn’t work, he doesn’t acknowledge his responsibility in that. He blames Subha for speaking up for herself, wiping her family’s responsibility of respecting her opinion. He also undermines her, calling her the “paruvu” (honor) of the house. He claims he maintains proximity to Radha because he loves her, but continuously harasses her, taking it a step further by watching her through a keyhole without her consent.  In the process of harassing Radha, he even goes to the lengths of instigating arguments between a couple.
• Don’t even get me started about how Radha’s entire personality is Rishi.
• Their love story is absurd
  • Imagine their entire journey, including the hyper-masculinized childhood story without the music – it’s concerning.
  • In the song, they forcefully take people ogling at their lover to organ and blood donation centers – this is abusive behavior.
  • Their birthday selfies were creepy. 
• It’s clear that Rishi is a movie fan with multiple references to movies
  • This would have been more enjoyable if there were a diversity in the movies he referenced, or a majority of the references weren’t to Chiranjeevi and his family members.
  • Vaishnav Tej entered Telugu cinema through his nepotistic advantages – known fact. There is a way to be mindful of that and be respectful to audiences. The number of references and his subpar performance make it seem as if he doesn’t care to do his part in making cinema since he can rely on his family’s fame – singing songs from Chiranjeevi’s movies, playing Pawan Kalyan’s movies in the background at every opportunity and pointedly casting Nagababu whose role could’ve been easily written out.
  • I will point out – there were references to other movies (of Naveen Chandra, NTR and Rajinikanth) but they weren’t enough to offset the audacity of his familiar references.
• I truly feel for Rishi’s friend played by Rajkumar Kasireddy. He is continuously belittled by his friends, slapped multiple times and shamed for his appearance – he should find better friends.

• Movie Rating: 4/10
• Maguva Impact Scale: -2.5