Khushi movie review Lyrics

Writer and Director: Shiva Nirvana

Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Samantha, Sachin Khedekar, Murali Sharma, Jayaram, Rohin

Kushi, like its title, wants to keep the mood pleasant and gleeful. The decision ends up being a double-edged sword. The light-hearted mood ensures that the film is pleasing and easily watchable for the most part, even though large chunks of it are not unique by any means. However, at times, this simplicity comes in the way of the broad concept at its centre, refraining the film from leveraging on its full potential. On the flip side (let me also double up as the devil's advocate here), had the film gone full throttle on the 'science vs faith' argument, I might have complained about the film's indulgence and preachy tone. So, I understand the filmmaker's choice to restrict the argument to the undercurrent, but still, a little more depth would have exalted Kushi from being a simple entertainer to a remarkable mainstream outing

THE STORY LINE...

Viplav (Vijay Deverakonda) and Aaradhya (Samantha) come from families with different ideologies. Viplav is the son of Lenin Satyam (Sachin Khedekar), a staunch atheist whose house has Ayn Rand quotes mounted on the wall, whereas Aaradhya is the daughter of Chandarangam Sreenivas Rao (Murali Sharma), a popular Hindu guru. The clash of these two worlds means not only their cultures differ but also their ideologies. We have seen enough inter-caste and inter-faith love stories—Mani Ratnam's Bombay comes to mind instantly and there are enough references to the filmmaker here — but Kushi is more interested in the ideological differences between the families and of course, the couple.

It's a delightful, relevant premise. In fact, the film's interval centered on a common belief or, say, superstition, that a black cat is a bad omen, is a wonderful, funny touch. But to get there, we need to sit through a large chunk of the generic first-act set in Kashmir. Shiva Nirvana tips his hat to Roja, and there's a hilarious pun about the romanticisation of the valley's picturesque geography. This entire stretch, charting the origin of the couple's love story sparked by a lie runs its course pretty soon and feels bloated after a point. It's also during this act we get an unnecessary, terribly set-up, and haphazardly shot bike chase sequence that makes you wonder if filmmakers don't realise that the audience can see through the fakeness of a green matte. But I don't have major complaints because most of the Kashmir sequence is breezy, even if its stretched beyond a limit.