Premalu - "Hyderabad Days"

Premalu - Malayalam/ Romance/Comedy/ 155 mins / Hotstar

 

The story is about a Sachin (Naslen, charming boy) - a typical "loser in life" ! He wants to travel to the UK for his higher studies, hoping to eventually settle down there . His good friend Amal Davis ( an absolutely hilarious Sangeeth Prathap) has already made plans to get into IIT Roorkee (so he can be with his girlfriend !!!).  

Reenu (a bubbly Mamitha Baiju) is starting her career in an IT firm in Hyderabad , staying with a "committed" female colleague and friend Karthika (a very sweet Akhila Bhargavan).  Aadhi (a goofy Shyam Mohan) is the overbearing, cynical "feminist" office senior who has a crush on Reenu and absolutely detests that she has anything to do with Sachin. So, now you know the rest of the story.  

Premalu is a  sweet, breezy movie, with a familiar story and  even more familiar characters. What sets it apart is the screenwriting, staging of scenes, the extremely smart dialogue and the charming cast. The chemistry between Sachin and Amal Davis is superb. The scenes (particularly towards the end) between Sachin and Reenu are also cool. The "JK" scenes by Aadhi are probably going to be around in memes for a couple of months , but that is about that!

Few years back - I watched Chichhore (2019) on streaming - (thanks to all the hype it generated and the box office success). It was a good  movie, but i had the "why was it such a big deal" feeling.  My theory was probably that generation of the time made it their own  "3 Idiots (2009)". 

Likewise, respectfully - Premalu is a definitely worth a watch (especially given the crime/thriller content around) -  I  get the  dejavu of Bangalore Days (2014) and a very similar feeling - this time however, i was wiser and kept zero expectations 😉