Valliddari Madhya review: What were they smoking?
Director VN Aditya’s romance starring Viraj Ashwin, Neha Krishna is a snooze-fest that has nothing going for it
0.5/5
Dec 16, 2022
Valliddari Madhya
Valliddari Madhya
Story:
Varun is a laidback, free-willed youngster who starts a company - Anvayaa.com - to take care of the emotional needs of parents whose children have settled abroad. He falls for Anvayaa, the daughter of an elderly couple, who’s just returned to India after breaking up with her boyfriend. Varun and Anvayaa are clearly interested in one another but their egos are in the way of their relationship. How do they fight their inner demons and resolve their differences? Is there a happy ending in store?
Review:
It’s hard to believe that VN Aditya, the man behind Manasantha Nuvve, Nenunnanu and Sreeram, could deliver something as bland and dull as Valliddari Madhya. While hits and misses are a part and parcel of a career in films, what’s more disappointing is the absence of any substantial effort from the filmmaker to make things work here. Valliddari Madhya is a lazily written romance where not a single sequence/performance captures your imagination.
The writer-director isn’t in sync with the times, neither with the writing nor the execution, and stretches his half-baked ideas into a two-hour-long film that desperately needed redrafting. The film is painfully unimaginative and pointless. Even in 2022, if a director needs a protagonist to fight out baddies to woo his romantic interest (over a video call), it just reflects his creative bankruptcy. He uses outdated tropes to emphasise that the leads need to get rid of their ego to let their romance soar.
There’s no meaning to the romance between Varun and Anvayaa. They meet over a video call and Varun is desperate to woo her as she returns to India. Anvayaa is yet to move on from a sour experience with her ex and her relationship with Varun hits a roadblock. VN Aditya tries to give a new twist to the alter-ego trope, but the idea falls flat on its head, making the film look sillier and outdated. The psychologist’s character to drive this message across is unintentionally funny.
When the filmmaker falls short of ideas to further the romance in the second hour, he returns to Varun’s startup (to help lonely parents whose children are settled abroad). When Varun’s friend misuses funds from his company to invest in his own firm, you expect the setback to transform him and take charge of his career. If the director tried to make the film with an iota of sincerity, he could’ve made this a poignant tale of self-reflection.
The subplot around Varun’s parents and their constant banters is absurd at best. It’s hard to understand what were the writers trying to establish with a sequence where a son arranges a lawyer for their parents’ divorce. Later, the scenes where Varun coordinates Anvayaa’s pre-wedding shoot are equally bizarre. The happy ending with a simplistic resolution is barely convincing and reminds you of films from the 60s and 70s.
It’s hard to take the conflicts in the protagonists’ life or their relationships seriously; there’s no conviction in the ideas at all. The screenplay makes little sense and roams around in circles, testing your patience. The acting adds insult to injury. Viraj Ashwin and Neha Krishna struggle to shoulder the film and the supporting cast (except Bindu Chandramouli) is largely a disaster. The characters arrive and leave at their will as if they’re having a jolly good time at a party.
Verdict:
Valliddari Madhya is a disaster where neither the director nor the cast has any control over the proceedings. The writing and the execution are equally pointless and the film does the job of an effective sleeping pill.
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