Majnu Review - A Love Story without Any Sheen or Novelty

Sethumadhavan

There’s this moment in Virinchi Varma’s Majnu, where we see the protagonist Aditya (Nani) finally agreeing to Suma’s (Priya Shri) request to share his love story from the past. And thus Aditya takes us back in time by 4 years, to Bhimavaram as he talks about the romance between him and Kiranmayi (Anu Emmanuel). For a while I almost got reminded of S.J.Suryah’s debut film Vaali (1999) where Simran coaxes Ajith to reveal his love story and he comes up with a poignant yet fictional tale. But Virinchi Varma does not take that route. The romance turns out to be a genuine one and by the time Aditya finishes narrating the same to Suma, something happens to him. Well after the film is over and done with, I realized that it was a moment of change for the audience as well, but they probably don’t realize it till much later.

Virinchi Varma had earlier made the youthful village romantic film, Uyyala Jampala which was well appreciated and this time with a bankable star like Nani playing the lead, Majnu looked a safe bet from all perspectives. With the publicity campaign featuring creatives carrying taglines like “Start Playing Start Loving” and “Stop Waiting Start Loving” the film promised to be a fun outing at the cinemas. Nani has been in good form of late and thus this automatically made Majnu as a keenly awaited film. But having seen the film now I wonder why Virinchi Varma had to totally forgo novelty in this film, surprising considering that it was one of the hallmarks of his previous film.

Aditya is an engineer turned Assistant Director (working with none other than S.S.Rajamouli) and he falls for Suma in Hyderabad. Suma coaxes him to reveal his love story and we see how he had wooed Anu back in Bhimavaram. Their fairy tale like romance ends on a bitter note unfortunately and Aditya shifts to Hyderabad. But revealing his love story makes Aditya realize that his feelings for Kiran still remain intact, taking him by surprise.  He is in for a shock as he comes across Anu once again but in a manner which puts him in duress. What is the situation that brings Anu back in his life and what happens eventually in the lives of Aditya, Anu and Suma are what we see as the tale progresses further.

The film has an engaging first half, Virinchi Varma does not waste much time in setting up the romantic interest between Aditya and Suma and there is an undercurrent of humour all through that segment. The flashback set in Bhimavaram is perhaps the best aspect of the film, Nani comes across convincingly as the engineer who falls head over heels in love with Anu, making him even join her engineering college as a junior lecturer in the process. While his act of wooing could have actually come across as stalking, it is to Nani’s credit that he handles the portion with a lot of charm and grace, making both Anu and the audience accept his intentions. Hence it is very disappointing to see the post interval portions turn out to be mundane and predictable.

One keeps hoping for some element to revive the interest level back in the film but sadly that never happens in the film. Gopi Sunder’s music is pretty decent and the film thankfully is not too lengthy either. The humour works to an extent, especially the scenes that feature Nani and Vennela Kishore together. S.S.Rajamouli and Raj Tharun’s cameos give something for the audience to cheer. Both Anu Emmanuel and Priya Shri are strictly ok, unable to match up to Nani’s magnetism and spirit. In fact Nani’s energetic output is perhaps the film’s redeeming point in a way, especially in the second half. If only the film had a lot more going for it, alas that is not to be seen though.

Bottom line:

Majnu starts off on a positive note and the first half is promising, the flashback portion carrying some spark. Unfortunately the post interval portions are mostly bland making the film turn out to be a disappointment eventually.

Rating: 2.5/5