Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Mrunal Thakur, Rohini Hattangadi, Jagapathi Babu, Vennela Kishore, Abhinaya, Divyansha Kaushik, Vasuki
Crew:
Music by Gopi Sundar
Cinematography by K.U. Mohanan
Editing by Marthand K. Venkatesh
Written & Directed by Parasuram Petla
Produced by Dil Raju
Family Star Movie Rating: 2/5
Vijay Deverakonda has been looking to deliver a huge blockbuster like Geetha Govindam from long time. His films did not work at the box office at the same level he and his fans have anticipated. Now, he joined hands with Geetha Govindam director Parasuram Petla, again for Family Star. The Dil Raju production released on 5th April worldwide and let’s discuss about the movie in detail.
Plot:
A middle class family is entirely dependent on Govardhan(Vijay Deverakonda). He is innocent and has his own beliefs and strict rules to keep the house in order. He adjusts with everything and anything to give some level of comfortable life to his brothers’ kids as well. His elder brother becomes an alcoholic and his younger brother looks to start his own production company. Hence, he becomes the only bread-earner of the household.
One day, Indu(Mrunal Thakur) moves into his penthouse and starts getting attracted to him. Her closeness even melts Govardhan, and “The Man” who has been against love, marriage decides to accept her in his life. But he discovers the truth that she came to his house only to write a thesis about him and his middle-class life. He rebukes her and accepts a huge offer from another company. Indu turns out to be the CEO of the company and he has to work with her controlling his ego. What happens next? Watch the movie to know more.
Analysis:
Vijay Deverakonda is good in major portions of the film. He has to carry the film on his shoulders and he tried his best. But the writing is filled with so many gaps and artificial emotions that you don’t connect with his character too. The character follows lead roles in films like “Ammo Okato Thariku”, “Budget Padmanabham”, “Abhishekam” and few more.
Director confuses middle-class pride with false egoistic prestige, miser and shamelessness at places. In general life, people only look to adjust with what they have and that doesn’t mean they go to every extreme. So, he needed to strike a balance between extreme personality for comical relief and cranky yet real life one for people to really root for him.
There are no funny yet relatable scenes rather we see a CG dosa and an almost caricature like leads. Mrunal Thakur is good in her portions but she is asked to just prepare and say few lines rather than build a character with the material given to her. A big respite from this onslaught of underdeveloped characters is Bamma by Rohini Hattangadi. She makes her scenes lively and we enjoy the way, she reacts to situations.
Gopi Sundar seems to have been rushed to score some songs and even writing feels very rushed. The old school style family emotions don’t work on every hero. Vijay Deverakonda doesn’t have an image like Nani or Nithiin, and he needs some youthful elements along with his characteristic energy in his scripts. So, a complete serial style narrative doesn’t work on him. Kushi had similar issues in second hour and Parasuram tried to reverse Geetha Govindam in second hour of this film and that did not land well.
Geetha Govindam had two well defined characters in a youthful love story. But here in a family story he tried to bring in romance and love elements. That needed a lot more thinking from him in designing characters and situations. It feels like he changed things in random way and tried to execute whatever his first draft is at quick pace. Such approach doesn’t work when the story is too old school and lead actor carries huge expectations from his films. On the whole, Family Star ends up being an opportunity lost film because the story’s point with better screenplay and narrative could have been a better one.
Positives:
Vijay Deverakonda performance
Rohini Hattangadi scenes
Mrunal Thakur in few scenes
Negatives:
Sloppy writing
Sluggish pacing
Serial style narrative
Lack of proper characters
Underwhelming Music
Family Star Movie Bottom-line: Just 40 years late