I happened to watch the most hyped movie in the recent past last weekend. The first thing that surprised, shocked and irritated me was the ticket prices. The movie released at many other centers in the US a week before and the web world has been flooded with positive reviews ever since and that in turn let this exhibitor raise the ticket prices to $12 for everyone over 5 yrs old. Let me get back to the movie and save this rant on the ticket prices for another post.There has been a lot of hype on Happy Days in the web world, most of it, I think, is because Sekhar Kammula knows how to use the major telugu portals to his advantage. He is a graduate student and like many of us knows the lifestyle of an NRI. The good thing though is, he backed up the hype with a feel good movie. Movies with a college background/theme should be dealt with delicately. The first turn off in these movies is the way the classroom episodes involving teachers and students is dealt with. Often our makers try to generate comedy using some vulgarity. 99% of the times the students make fun of the teachers to generate laughs. The other scenes where formula movie makers try to win the youth and mass audience is by choosing violent episodes between the college students in a very unnatural way. There is a thin line between the good and the bad in these movies and this is where Sekhar Kammula emerges as a winner.
Nostalgia is a funny word. It is a bittersweet memory of the past, but most of us tend to remember the good and ignore the bad. When I was in Intermediate, I always felt my school days were awesome. I felt I should have done somethings differently in intermediate while I was doing my engineering. After a semester in Masters, I always thought of the good times that I had while doing my B.Tech. Most of the times, I forgot those "night-outs" before exams and other tough times and I always remember and thought about those days when we won a cricket game or when we had fun at freshers party or when we went out on a fun trip or about those days when we friends just sat and talked crap all night. This is exactly what made Happy days a winner.
SK has chosen to ignore the real life politics of caste, religion and other minor preferences which all slowly become the cause of violence in college and also the cause of love and hate moving forward in life and that is what takes Happy Days away from the real world and makes it a feel-good film. The performances are wonderful, except for the tenglish accent of chandu. The scenes between Tyson and Shravanti are awesome and deserve a special mention. Both appu and rajesh are at ease and natural. On the whole each and every character has been cast perfectly by SK and the characterization is perfect. Mickey J Meyer's music is the soul of the film. He is the next A.R Rehman. The songs are brilliant and the background score fantastic.
