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Revisiting Vijay Deverakonda’s Arjun Reddy

On Vijay Deverakonda's birthday, here's revisiting his successful film Arjun Reddy.

arjun reddy Vijay Deverakonda in a still from Arjun Reddy.

With Arjun Reddy, two things happened at once in Telugu cinema. First, the industry was introduced to a new kind of film which much like its protagonist did what it wanted and said what it felt without holding anything back. And the second thing, well, we got Vijay Deverakonda.

Deverakonda has been acting since 2011, when he made his debut with Nuvvila. However, things weren’t really clicking until Sandeep Vanga Reddy directorial Arjun Reddy came his way.

As the title of the movie suggests, Arjun Reddy is Vijay Deverakonda’s film through and through. While Shalini Pandey as Priti does leave an impression as the naive, innocent and completely in love young college student, it is Deverakonda’s Arjun whose passionate, wallowing in self-pity brand of love I bought and went home with.

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This hero Arjun might be a do-gooder because of his profession — he happens to be a brilliant surgeon. But otherwise, he is just a bully who is used to getting his way. The fact that despite all these character flaws I ended up rooting for the protagonist is thanks to the combined magic of Deverakonda’s skills as a performer and Vanga’s on point direction.

The first half of the movie is both dramatic and entertaining. Arjun is a senior at a medical college who one day sets his eyes on Priti, the fresher and all he wants is her. He volunteers to teach her, protect her and be there for her. Love at first sight. And in this, Priti doesn’t seem to have any say, but she clearly likes all the attention she is getting from the good-looking and super smart Arjun. She never stops him. They go on to have a stormy love affair which ends in tears because her parents don’t approve. An already angry Arjun goes down the path of self-destruction all the while being emotionally detached and uncaring towards people who offer him support.

Festive offer

Then why do I want him reunited with his love towards the end of the film? Maybe because that is the nature of love, that is the kind of emotion it is supposed to invoke in innocent bystanders in the audience. But it also has to do with the way both Deverakonda and Vanga sold this Devdas-style story.

There is one sequence that perfectly captures the kind of love Priti and Arjun have for each other. They are on a bike, and Priti decides to kiss Arjun, he turns back to face her and their vehicle crashes. Priti and Arjun, who as a result, have fallen to the ground then quickly get up and resume the kiss. The blind, true love that sees no one but the other.

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The success of the movie opened doors for remakes. Arjun Reddy was remade in Hindi as Kabir Singh with Shahid Kapoor in the lead role and in Tamil, the film was remade as Adithya Varma starring Dhruv Vikram. While all the versions of the film received some criticism, it was the Hindi one that was bashed by many critics and audience alike.

Arjun Reddy is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ Hotstar.

First uploaded on: 17-06-2019 at 10:24 IST
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