After what ‘felt’ like 6 months, we went to the theaters to watch The Family Star. Our last movie date had been to HanuMan.
Let’s get down to the review of The Family Star.
Review:
Released on: April 5th, 2024
Director: Parasuram
Starring: Vijay Devarakonda, Mrunal Thakur, Rohini Hattangadi, Jagapathi Babu.
———— SPOILERS AHEAD —————–
The movie starts with Indu (Mrunal Thakur) praising Govardhan (Vijay Devarakonda, VD for short in this post) and telling whoever is listening to her about his good nature.
VD is the good boy of the family, who even takes care of the families of his 2 elder brothers, (who have no role in the movie at all). He is single, because he is yet to find a wife who thinks like him, who is ready to accept to live in a joint family, with responsibilities and all.
Now enters Indu, a new tenant in VD’s house and his life changes. All is well, till they decide to make things official but soon VD finds out that Indu is infact submitting a thesis on VD and his family in her University. She is an anthropology student and the book she published is called ‘The Man! (Highly unlikely and unbelievable even by the standards of anthropology and the movie, BUT whatever!)
VD feels insulted that she chose to approach him with a thesis at the back of her mind. He slaps her, doesn’t let her talk why she had done, what she had done and that’s the sign of INTERMISSION in movies.
Then comes the brain sucking, yawn inducing second half. What have I done to deserve this?
VD rakes his brains and comes up with a master plan on how to get back at Indu!
He contacts the company that had initially hired him during his campus placement days, meets with Jagapathi Babu, the MD. He not only asks for the job, but also for 2 or 5 year salary advance! (I am not sure if it is 2 or 5 yr advance because, at this point I was like, what the hell!)
Interestingly, Jagapathi Babu not only accepts his proposal but also decides to send VD for on-site work in the USA!
Can you guess what VD does with his salary advance, which is in crores? He pays off loans, buys bike, jewellery for the ladies in the family. Well and good. But he shows it off to Indu, through video calls! Such a loser!
He gets ready to fly to USA and guess who is accompanying him, but none other than the new CEO, Indu, who is the daughter of Jagapathi Babu!
Wait! So Indu’s father is running a construction company. She is his only daughter who inherits everything. She will surely be the CEO. Then why the hell did she go about studying Anthropology in Central University and write a thesis on VD! Beats me…
From here on the movie is a drag, with fights here and there and boring story line and sad faces and taunting lines.
Even Vennela Kishore is wasted in this movie, with no scope for humour. I wasted 350 bucks for a recliner seat and 750 bucks for caramel popcorn (I thought the movie would be entertaining!)
This is an all time bakwas movie I had ever watched, right behind LOVE STORY 2050, which is still going strong at the first spot.
P.S:
- Rohini Hattangadi as the grandma is a plus for the movie. I love watching her always. The other side characters are passable, not worth mentioning. The fresh pairing of the main lead is a positive for the movie.
- The director even tried to remind us of Geetha Govindam by clever placement of classical dancers near Mrunal Thakur, (as in Inkem Inkem kavale song) but still, this is no Geetha Govindam.
- To think that the movie was made by the director who made my all time favourite movie SOLO is a little surprising, but then, humans make errors.
- Solid editing would have made the movie better.
- Interestingly, die hard fans of VD say that the movie is fantastic and big heroes are trying to bring VD down, just like they did with Uday Kiran. I think that is trash talk. Uday Kiran movies were wayyyy better!
- Last but not the least, the name VD goes by in the movie is Govardhan and everytime I heard the name, I could only think of Subbaraju as Govardhan in Khaleja (another favorite of mine).
