'World Famous Lover' Review: A lacklustre love story

Duration: 156 mins

Director: Kranthi Madhav

Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Raashi Khanna, Aishwarya Rajesh, Catherine Tresa, Izabelle Leite, Priyadarshi and others

Music: Gopi Sundar

Rating: 2.25

In the times when love and relationships are more complicated than ever, Kranthi Madhav’s ‘World Famous Lover’ explores compromise, sacrifice and being selfless in love. The film tells the story of Gautam (Vijay Deverakonda) a struggling writer, who cannot come to terms with reality after his breakup with girlfriend Yamini (Raashi Khanna) with whom he was in a live-in relationship. When she leaves him, he channelizes his self-induced pain and frustration into writing a book and creates two fictional stories. The rest of the story is about the transformational journey of Gautam while writing his book.

At the outset, Kranthi Madhav’s story has an interesting premise but unfortunately, it is let down by its execution. While the narrative keeps changing between the stories written by Gautam to his real life, the essence of the plot is lost in transition. Gopi Sundar’s background music lifts the mood of the film occasionally, but the songs are a letdown.

The only solace in the film is the track featuring Seenayya (Vijay) and Suvarna (Aishwarya Rajesh). This story set in the backdrop of Yellandu coal mines has a good mix of the emotional and humorous quotient. This is the only part of the story which makes you root for its characters. Aishwarya Rajesh is terrific and she aces the rural Telangana dialect with a lot of ease and so does Vijay. Watch out for the scene where he retorts back to his father played by Anand Chakrapani which invokes few laughs.

However, the rest of the story is let down by its writing especially in the second half of the film. Although the visuals of Paris shot by Cinematographer Jaya Krishna look beautiful on-screen, the insipid writing doesn’t make it engaging enough to hold our attention. By the time, Gautam connects the dots in his stories to his life, it’s way too late and the predictable climax doesn’t help it any further.

As far as performances are concerned, Aishwarya Rajesh is a delight to watch. She stands out as a benevolent housewife willing to make any sacrifices to make her marriage work. Raashi Khanna is impressive too but the overtly dramatic sequences between Yamini and Gautam don’t help her shine much. The other two actresses Catherine and Izabelle look good on screen but have very little to perform. Priyadarshi as Gautam’s friend is wasted. Undoubtedly, the film is carried by Vijay Devarakonda on his shoulders. He shouts, cries, and fights just as he did in ‘Arjun Reddy’ and ‘Dear Comrade’. He is brilliant as Seenayya and it looks refreshing to watch. However, inspite of the earnest performances, the film doesn’t strike the emotional chord among the audience. In a recent promotional event, Vijay mentioned how he wants to hit every ball for a six, but with this film, unfortunately, it struggles to even reach the boundary line.