Life Before Wedding – Movie Review

Praveen Sattaru has made a different attempt by keeping six characters in two love stories in the film LBW (Life Before Wedding). He has tried to narrate how delicate emotions would come out of individuals in no time soon after they got a no from their loved ones or while saying no to the loved ones. Basically, the film is a fusion of two parallel stories, which chronicle the lives of six characters and how their relationships change over a period of time. The director has justified the title LBW. Read on for the review.

Story:
Rishi (Siddhu) and Jai (Abhijeet) are good friends. While Rishi is a little temperamental and hyperactive, Jai is quite cool and like the saying opposite poles attract, they become good friends. They come across Anu (Nishanti Evani). Anu is a systematic, principled girl and is quite reserved girl. She does not entertain Rishi, who attempts to flirt her. This helps Jai to get close to Anu and develop friendship, which turns into love finally. While this triangular love story runs in Indian backdrop, another love story runs parallel in Dallas. Rajesh (Rohan) and Radhika (Chinmayi) are also good friends. Once Radhika feels like she was in love with Rajesh and proposes him. However, Rajeshis under the impression that theirs is a deep friendship. Now, Varun (Asif Tej), an Indian-born American enters their lives. What happens next should be seen on-screen. The film is all about the ever-changing relationships that influence the lives of different people.

Performance:
Almost all the actors of the movie are novices. The director has taken the right decision, as he had to elevate the character and any artiste who is familiar to the audiences could not connect to the subject properly. Among all, Siddhu has given a brilliant performance and wins the hearts of the audience. He has the talent to suit the Telugu cinema industry with a flexible body language and fantastic dialogue modulation. Abhijeet also has given an impressive performance. Asif Tej’s excellent accent and coolness brings the sense of believability. Rohan's talent too comes to light just before the climax. Nishanti and Chinmayi are okay.

Technical:
Camera work in the film is extraordinary. The cinematographer has made use of Red One camera and within limited resources. However, he has excelled in capturing the emotions of the artistes perfectly. Editing by Dharmendra is adequate and minor lapses in trimming some prolonged scenes could be justified. Most of the songs in the film are either montages or situational songs. Music by Anil is melodious. Dialogues are okay and keeping the multiplex audiences in mind, the dialogue writer has penned some English conversations. The production values are adequate. Director Praveen Sattaru completely had no practical knowledge in film-making and came to India to direct the film. This had indirectly helped him to establish the characters in a novel way. The story-telling could be seen on the screen in a never before manner. Of course, lack of experience resulted in a couple of stretched scenes, which could have avoided by editing.

Remarks:
The movie does not have regular commercial elements.The entire first half is taken for the establishment of characters and the second half is quite entertaining. As a whole, the film could be enjoyed by the present day youth.

Cast: Asif Tej, Rohan Gudlavalleti, Chinmayi Ghatrazu, Abhijeee Pundla, Sidhu Jonnalagadda & Nishanti Evani
Credits: Music – Anil R, Cinematography – Andrew Redd & Suresh Babu, Editing – Dharmendra Kakarala, Story, Producer – Deborah Stone & Naveen Sattaru, Screenplay, dialogues, direction – Praveen Sattaru.
Banner: A Working Dream Production
Released on: February 18, 2011