My Take on Dear Comrade

Dear Comrade – A prolonged and jarring half baked romantic saga. 

                                          

Release - 26th July 2019

Language - Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada

Starring - Vijay Devarakonda, Rashmika Mandanna, Suhas and others.

Written and Directed by - Bharath Kamma

Producers - Mythri Movie Makers

                Dear Comrade is the story of Chaithanya or as people call him Comrade Bobby, is a young student activist living his life with the pride and energy of serving the students in frightful need of help. Bobby is a solemn, furious and practical young man who is the soul of the Student Union Committee in his town accompanied by him and his friends who fight for the students alongside. Bobby falls in love with her childhood friend Lilly, whom he meets after years and gets flattened for her valiant and confirmed yet jaunty and warm character. Lilly is a Rising state tier cricketer who loves cricket even before and more than how much she loves Bobby. Lilly has an emotional hiccup in her life as her brother lost his life in the same student activity hassle that Bobby currently loves doing. Eventually, Lilly doesn’t figure out the balance between her love for the game and the person despite Bobby stating his love that he loves cheering her while he watches her play rather than letting her sacrifice the sport for him. His Impulsive nature alarms Lilly as she gets in constant fear of losing her comrade in his violent communism, as a result, breaks her relationship making a choice of living peacefully without him over happily with him. Bobby tries his best to move on and turns himself into more peaceful and modest young man whereas Lilly’s life gets more scrupulous and problematical as her profession shreds off the smile on her face making her mentally disarrayed. Bobby’s return and he getting acknowledged on Lilly’s pathetic condition questions him between his older and newer persona as Lilly’s life deserves both of them in parts. He gets fixed as an apple of Discord between Lilly’s personal and professional cricketing life as both of them gasp with their stakes hitting the bottom rock. It is how these people’s contrasting yet oddly similar mindsets influence each other’s journey to grow and mature in their life that the movie ultimately suggests.

 Dear comrade is a very thoughtful and feel-good movie but has its fair share of flaws. The movie starts off as hero-centric with Vijay Devarkonda as Bobby filling the energy dynamics with his anguish and angst, then slowly shifting to the poignancy of the bond between Bobby and Lilly (Played by gorgeous Rashmika Mandanna), which is the best and loving part of the movie lies and then shifting to heroine’s turmoil focussing on her chaotic life which gets the care and support of Bobby. Bharath Kamma writes a refreshing new story of romance with good value for content and universal appeal. The romance genre is the toughest one to tackle as the elements need to be written in a very unforeseen manner yet should be very much relatable. Now, writing the story in a refreshing new manner is what Bharath excels, but having the relatability and the owning quotient is what it falls short of. The reasons are many being that the characterization of the main lead gets a not so properly defined and not so properly margined out treatment. The characters get excessively abstract subverting them to interesting yet bizarre and strange transitions. The character arcs get a confused and too imaginative flow swaying away from the reality of the world that the story is set in and defined to us from the start. The believability and convincing point of the story gets below par. Bobby’s character is a mix of the foresighted and powerful facade of Suriya’s Micheal in Aayitha Ezhuthu and the commercial and massy flavour in the guise of Mahesh Babu’s Siddharth in Sainikudu , both of them having the same trope of fighting for their people as a young responsible citizen wherein Mahesh Babu’s version being more peppy with the songs and fights. Bobby initially feels like the former character but soon inclines towards the latter more crowd-pleasing one. Add to this the boldness and temperament of Arjun Reddy played by the actor himself. Vijay Devarakonda lives up to the role of Bobby for the most part with ease but the newness starts fading out as he doesn’t nail the lingo of the character satisfactorily. The dialogue delivery jars at points where his pronunciation gets restricted or rather repetitive to his older films especially that of Arjun Reddy as he seems to be caged to the slang of it. As a result, the intense lines sometimes feel forceful when mouthed by the actor. These flaws get covered up with the adorable character of Lilly as she gets written very beautifully with very much lifelike, humane and touching features having a great scope of performance. Rashmika makes her mark as a talented actor by perfectly-getting into the character. We see a strong women character is written which later leaves the stance it was given becomes again a very normal heroine in Telugu cinema The letdown is her dubbing as the sync between her lips and the voice gets lost in a considerable number of moments. Not only Lilly but most of the other main characters also recur this problem. 

The next reason for it's missing connect being its narration. The movie seems prolonged and very much leisurely narrated taking its time to unveil things. The screenplay and editing take a more relaxed seat as the audience get tested of their patience several times. This slow pace does help in giving the audience the time to feel along, with and for the characters giving a solid foundation for the audience to connect. As stated before, the too creative and too imaginative twists in the story could’ve been savoured if it was told more tightly rather than being a prey to the sluggish narration leaving the intensity to the mercy of the audience. Also, we don’t get a proper premise or establishment for the first step of their relationship. The initial scenes of them meeting and getting to know each other entertain us rather than consciously or even subconsciously making us feel the early steps towards their love. Post these scenes, it felt having the affection for each other was too much of an extreme reaction rather than befriending. The chemistry between the lead pair Vijay and Rashmika is sweet and charming, just like their proven venture Geetha Govindam,  making the movie watchable as their on-screen act as a pair is red hot while most of the other elements just starting to be luke-warm.

Thankfully, the bad parts end there. The good parts of the movie especially being the Music and Cinematography. Music by Debutant Justin Prabhakar is melodious, tuneful and amplifies the romantic feel held strong by their chemistry. The Director very smartly uses few songs as a way to essay paragraphs of engaging dialogues with immersive music. The songs which stuck out were Nee Neeli Kannullona, Gira Gira, Kadalalle and to some extent The Comrade Anthem. These come in at the right time and progress the story in the right and a faster direction. The remaining songs which mostly come in the second half feel good to hear but due to inclusion, the narrative feels bland. The background music also feels apt and sets the mood. The next good thing is the cinematography by Sujith Sarang whose visuals give a new tone for the movie. The cinematographer covers the by-lanes to the seashores of Kakinada beautifully tapping on its energy and dynamics. The widespread landscapes of the road trip our protagonist takes as an ailment to his post-trauma get captured in an eye-feasting manner as we see ourselves in the bed of nature.

In conclusion, the movie is great as per its storyline but always has something missing in its presentation on the screen. The movie initially hints us at the clash between Hero’s communist mindset and his love angle making it a conflict in his relation, it slowly shifted from the hero(towards the heroine) and to make the love angle more significant than everything and settles there, which is not a problem unless not dealt captivatingly. Dear Comrade can be classified as a romantic drama rather when we check it’s justification in different levels, that is, thematically- it’s a big yes!! But narratively – it’s a no, as it fails to tie and tweak us with its elements which were thought to be intriguing but in real sense they are boring. 

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