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'Naa Nuvve' review: This Kalyan Ram-Tamannah romcom is a let-down

In the name of 'destiny', the director spins a mind-numbing storyline.

Written by : Krishna Sripada

For starters, a correction, since the actors insisted on using the English word ‘destiny’ about 3398432189472 times to describe the tedious storyline of this so-called romantic-comedy – the word they were looking for is not 'destiny' but 'serendipity'.

In short, Naa Nuvve is the poor man’s Serendipity for those who have watched the Hollywood version.

Meera (Tamannaah) finds a book titled Love Signs (mushy gets murkily gooey) belonging to Varun’s (Kalyan Ram) grandma Kalyani, in which she finds his photo. Suddenly, luck starts smiling on her, making her believe he is her lucky charm. Before she knows it, and we recover from the cringey title of the book (we are still getting over Linda Goodman Sunsigns), she falls in love with him – he who has missed a flight to Seattle thrice, because destiny!!

But, even when she tracks him down, he behaves in a way no man would usually behave when a beautiful woman comes knocking on his doors – acts busy and almost annoyingly snobbish. (Hello, reality check!) He doesn’t believe in destiny and so, sets some conditions, which, thanks to Meera’s belief in destiny, turn out to be true in the most outrageous fashion.

Now that we’ve the serendipitous (read 'accidentally written in some railway station when the train was late and probably should’ve been dumped there itself') plot out of the way, let’s discuss some ground realities. Even if we set aside the fact that this movie has decided to be a fantasy ride, in which anything is possible, where are the moments and romance?

The songs are an afterthought. The comedy is less screenplay and is more dependent on the image of the comedians helping out a director who seemed to have just one thought before beginning this movie – a radio programme for 36 hours in a railway station. That the heroine becomes an RJ after just freezing for most part of the audition and then blabbering a mushy, banal line about magic and love, (can’t quite remember the order of those words) is metaphorically the tale of the movie-makers – freeze, make something, freeze again. The best actor in the film was a coffee-seller who appeared for two seconds, selling coffee while singing.

Jayendra Panchapakesan’s love story treats Hyderabad like a village of three by-lanes and five families. The heroine running into the same inane traffic cop is a classic case of this movie taking everything for granted in the name of serendipity-destiny.

The only saving grace is that it is short, and sans the needless songs that are not memorable in any way, could have ended before the interval. In a parallel world, the leading pair would meet on Yahoo Messenger (throwback, yo), ask ASL, meet and live happily ever after!

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film's producers or any other members of its cast and crew.

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