Ranga Ranga Vaibhavanga review: Clean rom-coms are a rarity, and this one makes you feel good

Panja Vaisshnav Tej in 'Ranga Ranga Vaibhavanga'. (Image: Sony Music South/Screen grab)

‘If we are together, each day is Ugadi!’ That’s how Ramudu and Chanti, two best friends live. They have built identical homes next to one another, and their families get along so well, it will make you want to call your own. The two friends have kids at the same time: Rishi and Radha.

Rishi and Radha grow up together, going to the same school, and I was a tad alarmed at Rishi’s possessiveness about Radha, what with the director making Adithya Verma (2019) which was an official remake of Arjun Reddy. My heart plummeted to my stomach. Is this possessive love going to be a problem? Thankfully the two kids get into an argument and swear that they won’t ever speak with one another.

This silent war carries on even through medical school, much to the amusement of their families and friends. Rishi has been in love with Radha, like forever, and it’s amusing to see the tricks they play on one another to get the other one to speak first. I was surprised to realise that it was intermission - time passes quickly when it's all good, clean fun.

Radha’s older brother Arjun is an ambitious young politician. He wants to make an impression on his political party leaders at any cost. So when the party boss, a minister, makes a request, "Find my ‘America-returned’ son a suitable bride," Arjun is ready to comply. He invites the minister and the family home and offers his quiet sister as a "good, homely" candidate for marriage. Radha announces unceremoniously that she’s not really good or homely and is in love with the neighbour’s son: Rishi’s older brother!

This bombshell does not go down well with Arjun, and his boss asks him: how can you take care of society when you don’t even have the pulse on the goings on at home?

This derails the story of happy families and the cracks begin to show, the dads, the moms and yes, the children are now unhappy and angry. The two dads who have been friends for over 50 years now don’t even look at one another. The mothers are more vocal. The sudden enmity even puts the household help who works in both homes in a tough spot. Where is this headed?

You will hear critics groan about how they’ve seen both Ramudu and Chanti and their wives play similar roles. To them I say, "It’s far better to see friends who can share food, and moms who make coffee on the big screen as in this movie than to see mean mothers and mothers-in-law and fathers who are uncaring of their families." More power to these wonderful actors. Also a shoutout to Naveen Chandra who gets to play the angry brother of the heroine. It takes courage to play the only angry guy in a movie where everyone else is loving.

I wished the writers had made a little more effort in creating the characters of Rishi's older brother and Radha’s older sister. We don’t really know what they do, and even Rishi and Radha try to figure out how and when they fell in love. The families too are so affected by Arjun’s anger, we never really see the two older siblings being blamed for the fallout or being scolded. But the romance is sweet and fun, so you don’t really think that this romance does not really have huge ups and downs of old-fashioned Laila-Majnu type tear-my-clothes-and-die-hungry-at-your-doorstep type of love, but just gentle sea-breezes that cool you down as you watch the first stars begin to shine on the lonely beach.

Telugu cinema has been giving us the crash, bang, boom style cinema, this quiet romance is a welcome change. And yes, the comedy even translates well. The sarpanch, when the medical students go to medical camp, offers laugh out loud moments. I do wish they didn’t slap people for comedy, but watching him sing the same refrain in different Telugu dialects was funny. Heard ‘Teri Maa Ki Kirkiri’ after a long time so I giggled into my coffee!

Romance movies must have great songs, and here too the songs are ‘nice’, but they don’t get into your head like Kumkumala (in the Telugu version of Brahmastra) by the talented Sid Sriram does. Kothaga Ledhenti by Arman Malik and Haripriya and Telusa Telusa by Shankar Mahadevan fit nicely into the story and make you feel good about butterfly kisses in the film. That description of the kiss should take you right back to Kevin Kostner’s The Untouchables (1987), where his daughter flutters her eyelashes on her father’s cheek. Well done!

While Bollywood has been offering star-studded flops, I am happy to watch romances like Thiruchitrambalam (where Dhanush plays a regular guy who takes time to realise that his best friend is the true love of his life) and Ranga Ranga Vaibhavanga (where childhood romance is put to the test because of an angry brother). They are calm and good and fun in theatres; and they work on OTT too.