To begin a New Year’s morning with a movie with a Ram’s film is definitely risky. Jokes apart and coming straight go the point Nenu Sailaja has inaugurated the new year gracefully with lot of lighter moments and the ‘feel-good’ factor. Yes, after a very long time Ram has picked a script that suits him the best and he acted so aptly without overdoing it. In Nenu Sailaja , he is not the ‘aadmi kam-baat zyaada’ he played in umpteen films.
Nenu Sailaja is primarily a love story with the background of Vishakhapatnam. The movie begins with showing two families – one which is happy together and the other one has the father always away from them. The former is Hari’s (Ram) and the latter belongs to Sailaja (Keerthi Suresh). Sailaja is introvert, moody and inexpressive. Hari is that happy-go-lucky guy who with his wit can generate a smile on Sailaja’s face any time. This relationship begins in their childhood. It’s paused when they move to different places and again meet as directed by the destiny. They both fall in love again. Things take a turn when Sailaja breaks up with him and agrees to get married with her ‘bava’. The rest of the film is about why Sailaja takes that decision and Hari’s efforts to win his childhood love at any cost.
When we look at the story in a birds eye view, it’s very familiar in parts. However, the way Director Kishore Tirumalamtreated is what made the real difference. He made sure the melodrama never reaches the threshold. And whenever it is about to reach, he intelligently places a lighter moment after it. Majority of the film is like a sit-com, where all the humour falls in place so naturally without any force. There is no parallel comedy track that merges with the main story going on. There are no comedians either. Instead, Pradeep Rawat is used in a comic role which worked very well. The songs also don’t seem like an unwanted addition. They go well with the scenes and have suitable lyrics except the mandatory hero introduction song.
There is a lot of family sentiment aspect in the film, but is so cleverly merged with the primary love story that you might not feel the overdose really.
What makes this film so appealing is its simplicity. Simplicity in every form. Be it the dialogues, the sets, the people or even the villains. Everything is very controlled in right amounts.
Performances wise, everyone was apt. Even actors who got small roles like Chaitanya Krishna have given their best required for their designed roles.
Kishore Tirumala reminds of Karunakaran way of keeping certain things simple and light-hearted. With this film, he might get his due recognition which he failed to get with his underrated debut film ‘Second Hand’
All in all, Nenu Sailaja is a familiar story yet very refreshing for its treatment, dialogues and consistency in the humour.
