Ninnu Kori Review - A slow yet mature love story

Hari

Love in cinema has come a long way, gone are the days when the hero-heroine used to elope, lovers try to convince parents of their true love, and triangular love stories came with a thrilling climax. Ninnu Kori inspires from all these bits and evolves maturely, keeping in mind how practical love can become over time. With minimal characters, some hard hitting performances, beautiful BGM and visuals, the debutant director has managed to pull off a decent love story.

Ninnu Kori is tailor made for the youth and starts off quickly by checking all boxes required for a love story. Shiva does not take much time establishing the love angle of Nani – Nivetha and rather ushers into it in an unconvincing manner of yet again showing a naïve heroine; but once we enter the love drama, the director gets the screenplay pedal going by establishing the depth of their characters. With usual love in the air concept, the first half rather chugs along slowly with the usual scenes you find in a youthful love story. It’s not until Nani and Nivetha confront the question of moving forward in their love that the real story gets going.

Ninnu Kori doesn’t try hard to be emotional or deep in its love pretext, it’s the screenplay of the characterization that does the trick. Does love give us a second chance? Or is it your virtue to go and grab it? Shiva draws inspiration from real life love stories and is clear through the context of the movie. Once its clear that Nivetha has given up Nani for his own good and settles down in America with Aadhi, we are made to take a wild guess on how the story would unfold. The director springs a new twist by bringing the trio together and the drama of how Nivetha tries to prove her love for her husband Aadhi in front of Nani forms the crux; and this happens with a soup song, some love nostalgia and of course lots of love drenched dialogues as is the case in many Nani movies.

Putting such a predicament gives room for some good acting scenes and yes, we do get to see Nani, Nivetha and Aadhi draw some powerful and emotional acting. Nani is at his comfort zone; plain old simple natural acting. As a bygone lover he makes us feel pathetic when talking about love and at the same time he is comical, which is one of the best traits of movie. Aadhi is quiet, reserved; the director keeps him waiting to give his best. As responsible and a loving husband he maybe, that very easily persuadable character looks amiss and could have been dealt better. Still nothing to find as a fault with the actor. Nivetha probably steals the show from the rest of them; starts off as a usual Tollywood heroine who falls for the hero without a solid reason then goes on to build her character in a finer manner. Her predicament in the triangular love story is picturized maturely.

Technically, Ninnu Kori is good with fresh visuals of USA with an apt background score and songs from Gopi Sunder. The first half looks lengthier for its typical love portions. A few scenes short and the entire movie would have felt better. The  slow narration plays spoilsport as major emotional outbreaks are reserved for the last and done beautifully but becomes a test of patience by then.

Bottomline:

Ninnu Kori is tailor made for all those love bugs searching for true love before or after. The high emotional drama in its screenplay aided by some fresh dialogue takes on love and good performances from the lead cast, makes Ninnu Kori a good watch.

Rating: 3/5