Nenu Shailaja Review

Nenu Shailaja Review, What’s Behind: Young and energetic hero Ram is here to impress us with a new kind of love story having Keerthy Suresh as heroine and Kishore Tirumala penning the story, dialogues along with direction. Having impressed with an impressive trailer generating positive pre release buzz, let us see how far the same impression is felt in our ‘Nenu Shailaja’ review.

Nenu Shailaja Story: All it begins with young guy Hari (Ram) willing to fall in love from childhood days never succeeds in his trials. Although there is a girl named Shailaja (Keerthy Suresh) in Hari’s life from school days, she disappears from his life when her father (Sathya Raj) and family are forced to shift to another location. When Hari decides never to fall in love, thus comes Shailaja again into his life. As romance blossoms between the two, Shailaja rejects Hari’s love proposal due to set of personal reasons back at home. Here comes the twist when Hari’s sister (Srimukhi) leaves a strong clue on what made Shailaja and her brother (Prince) to go Araku where Shailaja’s marriage with her Bava (Chaitanya Krishna) is on the cards. What’s the emotional family game Hari plays in Araku to win his love is rest.

Nenu Shailaja Artists and Technicians: It is really worthwhile to start our analysis from writer cum director Kishore Tirumala. Though this is his second directorial after below average ‘Second Hand,’ he seems to have done extremely wonderful groundwork in ripening the characterizations composed on a familiar screenplay format with high predictability and presented the same in a feeble manner balanced by good dialogue writing. As a writer Kishore is sure to win more applause than as a director. Little more budget or injection of extra energy dose into entire film could have brightened overall feel. Narration moves on at slow pace with subtle, casual and realistic humor. At certain places in second half, his story telling abilities bog down because of inadequate content on hand and ample run time left to pull the cinema for at least 120 or 130 minutes. However, he firmly reconnects all those loose ends by pre-climax and climax which are actually best portions in film. A special mention is always needed to recognize and respect his dialogue writing abilities. Devi Sri Prasad composed a couple of immediately registering tracks and BGM too kept drama and emotion aloft in last 20 minutes. Sameer Reddy cinematography is just a mediocre work while Sreekar Prasad editing had certain loopholes in coalescing all the characters in second half. Sravanti Ravi Kishore followed a contemptible approach in spending money which resulted in visible poor quality production standards. Definitely, a little more budget could have bought some delight.

On to performances, Ram iced on cake with this underplaying role. He was much more settled with no fluxing of energy. Though, it is sometimes hard to see Ram in low profile yet his comic timing and genuine effort to hold with characterization roots might win him more marks. Keerthy Suresh is also a right choice for the heroine role with less expressiveness. Her frail and ramshackle characterization bursts in climax with justifiable answers. Sathya Raj, Rohini were graceful stealing the climax. Prince, Srimukhi did a good job. Pradeep Rawat is a surprise package. Artists in those negative shades were cheap looking. Naresh, Pragathi, Vijay Kumar, Krishna Bhagawan, Chaitanya Krishna, Dhanya Balakrishnan and others were just fine.

Nenu Shailaja Rating Analysis: Apparently, there are credits and discredits to Kishore Tirumala. First thing, he remained sincere and honest towards all the characters etched but the purpose has served only half fulfilled when his extremely imposing writing skills are shadowed in underplaying characters. The whole premise in which story narration flows being quite familiar, he stood on generation of a heart touching feel good flavor striking a balance between youthful elements and family sentiments. 

Of course, Ram is a powerhouse performer with bundles of energy oozing in his natural body language. All this went missing with inescapable dullness crept in both halves. This kept entire first half on average note with situational fun based on lead pair’s childhood episodes, then the romantic track and confusing interval block passing the time. Into second half, soon after ‘Shailaja’ song and before opening the emotional family conflict in pre climax, Kishore has done the damage with row of unpleasant episodes obeying a strict formulaic DDLJ kind of template. 

All in all, Nenu Shailaja is an approvable average to above average product for sensitive dialogue writing; neat, genuine character drawings; peak pre climax and climax from Kishore; Ram’s performance and DSP music which makes the product worth to win 2.75 stars.

Commercially, ‘Nenu Shailaja’ will work on sure-shot profit terms relative to a strict shoe string budget and poor production standards which are in non-sync with Sravanti banner value.

Nenu Shailaja Cinejosh Verdict: It’s Good, It’s Still Not Good!

                                                     Nenu Shailaja Cinejosh Rating: 2.75/5.0

                                                                    Reviewed by Srivaas