| Movie Name | Chitralahari |
| Movie Cast | Sai Dharam Tej, Kalyani Priyadarshan, Nivetha Pethuraj |
| Director | Kishore Tirumala |
| Music Director | Devi Sri Prasad |
| Production Company | Mythri Movie Makers |
| Release Date | April 12, 2019 |
As the fever of elections has come down in both the Telugu states, now is the time for the release of movies as everyone want the movie to reach a wider audience. Sai Dharam Tej, now Sai Tej, name changed for various reasons is in a rough phase in his career with a double hat trick of flops and he is coming with Chitralahari to taste success. This movie is directed by Kishore Tirumala who earlier directed Nenu Sailaja and Vunnadhi Okate Zindagi in the production of Mythri Movie Makers who pinned high hopes on this film as their last two movies bombed at the box office. This movie has Kalyani Priyadarshan of Hello fame and Nivetha Pethuraj as female leads. Let’s see how it works on us as it is releasing into theatres today.
Story
Vijay Krishna (Sai Tej) is a guy who always strives for and struggles for success but never tastes even a bit of it from his childhood. He develops a project and makes it his dream and path for his success on accidents. He comes across Lahari (Kalyani Priyadarshan) and they fall in love with each other. When they both are happy with their lives Chitra (Nivetha Pethuraj) comes into Lahari’s life and points out everything in her love life negatively. It makes Lahari break up with Vijay. With the fear of failure and heartbreak and Vijay goes onto develop his project fully to achieve success. How he did that?
Cast and Performance
Sai Tej as Vijay Krishna is superb. He did a very nice job in his role and his looks and body language is minimal to suit the role of failure. Kalyani Priyadarshan as Lahari is good. She looks cute. Nivetha Pethuraj again has given a good performance in her role as Chitra. Sunil is nice. Posani Krishna Murali and Vennela Kishore are good in their roles. Brahmaji, Jaya Prakash is fine. All other actors are good in their roles.
Writing Department
The story of Chitralahari is fine. The screenplay could have been better to make it a worthy watch. The dialogues in some sequences are superbly written.
Technical Departments
The songs composed by Devi Sri Prasad are good. Except for Prema Vennela, none of the songs impress us as they lack the freshness. He neither has shown his work in composing background score. The cinematography by Karthik Ghattamaneni is nice. He gave some fine shots for this movie. Editing could be better. The art department has done fine work. Production values of Mythri movie makers are grand.
Highlights
Sai Tej as Vijay Krishna
Cinematography by Karthik
Dialogues by Kishore Tirumala
Minus
Screenplay
Verdict
Chitralahari is a story of a dejected guy who yearns and works for success but fails. When it is seen as a single line story it seems like it has the potential to be an inspiring story but it is not what we get to see in the movie. The first half of the movie gets the characters introduced and we get to see the love story of Vijay and Lahari. This half has some fun moments but has nothing more than that. The second half has some revelations in Vijay characters to make him successful as a part of writing gimmick and it runs on a flat note with a few emotional sequences with a heavy background score which we are hearing from DSP from a long time. Director Kishore Tirumala has tried to write the screenplay without deviating from the story but failed to create the magic to engage the audience or connect. To summarise, Chitralahari might be another disappointment for Sai Tej alias Sai Dharam Tej.
