Madhura Sreedhar's film has got all the props - a contemporary social behaviour (live-in relationship) as the foundation on which to base the story, an upwardly mobile hero and heroine with a dare-to-do-it attitude, and a setting in which to churn an emotional story. Despite all that, It's My Love Story is failed by a lack of everything from intellectual depth and intensity to sensibility.
Vandana (Nikitha Narayan) is a this-generation middle-class girl with dreams of her own. She is just any other ordinary girl who has grown up in the household under parental supervision, and whose parents (Jayasudha and Sharath Babu) do not want to risk sending her to Hyderabad so that she can follow her dreams in fashion designing. After persuading them to give the nod and convincing them of the need for her to relocate to Hyderabad, she moves out of Vijayawada.
Much to her dismay and shock, she finds that her room mates drink and sniff cocaine and finds it difficult to stay put with the bunch. After a police raid on the flat they live in, Vandana is taken into custody. The police release her after she is tested negative for drugs, but the incident creates a sense of helplessness in her that she wants to go back to her home.
Arjun (Arvind Krishna) stops her. In no time, our girl-next-door, traditional ammayi accepts the proposal of her new-found friend (Arjun, played by Arvind Krishna) to share his room. Gasp!
It is not as if she has known Arjun for a long time or something. Vandana and Arjun had been SMS and Facebook friends before the girl recently asked him to come to a restaurant on an evening. To be sure, our hero starts flirting her in their first meeting itself. That's how they became closer in their relationship.
The live-in disgusts the neighbours and shocks Arjun's colleagues. Vandana is guilty that she is lying (that she is living at her friend's place as paying guest) to her parents; meanwhile, our hero is pursued by a girl younger to him by 10 years in the neighbourhood.
One fine day, an angry Jayasudha knocks on the door of the young couple and takes Vandana with her. The separation makes the two realise that they are indeed in love.
The rest of the film is about what desperate steps the two love birds take to meet each other, what unthinking behaviour they indulge in and how Vandana's parents react to all that.
IMLS is simplistic and immature. The story required to provide a strong justification for Vandana wanting to live-in with Arjun. At the time of Arjun and Vandana living together under one roof, there is no platonic relationship between them. Given the girl's middle class moorings, her action doesn't follow logic. So much for a film that boasts of youngsters having tradition on the back of their minds. Tom-toming has a limit.
You will scratch your heads to understand why the heroine's parents constantly spurn the decent proposals of our hero, who is not only good-looking and salaried, but also has a proud family background. So much to digest in this age of liberal mindsets among the parents.
The daughter doesn't show remorse at the death of her father; and when realization comes to her after some time, she doesn't seem agonized but dejected that she will have to break-up with Arjun. So much for a film where family values are claimed to have been given primacy.
Why does Jayasudha become soft on Arjun, who eloped with her daughter, causing her husband's death?
The music director is ever on the verge of breaking into a song; or so it appears, because the background score is highly inappropriate.
Talking of performances, the hero doesn't show maturity in portraying emotions. He will do well to go brush up his basics which could help him found his place under the sun. Thankfully, he has got good looks and built; so it should not be a problem for him to become an admired lover boy. Nikitha scores over the hero and has that earthy demeanour which suits her character. Jayasudha and Sharat Babu are at their usual best. Pragathi as hero's mother delivers a natural one.
Sunil Kashyap's music is the only high point about the film.
All in all, IMLS is a film sans depth and emotional conflict. This makes it look like a shoddily written idea on the paper.
Released on: 11th Nov, 2011
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