‘Crazy Kalyanam’ movie review: A middling marriage drama salvaged by a strong finish

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Akhil Uddemari, Tharun Bhascker, Anupama Parameswaran and Naresh in the film | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

“The ordinary is the writer’s richer field. Its unexpectedness, its singularity, its infinite variety afford unending material,” novelist Somerset Maugham famously observed about the inspiration that ordinariness offers for stories. This week’s Telugu film, Crazy Kalyanam , too, turns its attention to an ordinary family in Medak, whose members nearly tear into each other on a daily basis but still manage to stick together.

Not a day goes by without Parvathalu (Naresh) lamenting that his elder daughter deserved a better match than Balraj (Tharun Bhascker). Desperate to make amends and salvage his public reputation, he is now fixated on marrying his younger daughter, Keerthi ( Anupama Parameswaran ), into a wealthy family.

Keerthi, meanwhile, has other plans. She is preparing for government exams, asserting her need for financial independence to her childhood sweetheart Uday (Akhil Uddemari), while Parvathalu’s ailing mother Veeramma is quietly nudged to pack her bags and spend the rest of the year at her elder son’s house.

Director Badrappa Gajula repeatedly zooms in on the minutiae of their not-so-eventful lives. Veeramma seeks Keerthi’s help to write her name in Telugu. Balraj wakes up embarrassed by his late-night musings. And Parvathalu finds himself torn between funding his mother’s treatment and paying for his daughter’s wedding.

At the heart of Crazy Kalyanam is this tug-of-war: a father’s desperation to get his daughter married and her determination to live on her own terms. He thinks twice about paying ₹30,000 for her entrance exam preparation but does not bat an eyelid about arranging ₹30 lakh for the wedding. Both are caught in a vicious cycle of conforming to societal norms while fighting to have their way.

The familiar narrative device of using a wedding to tell a family’s story makes the film instantly relatable. Though its simplicity is striking initially, it grows complacent in romanticising the family’s reality. The writing becomes repetitive until Keerthi is suddenly gaslit into agreeing to an alliance. While her conflict with Parvathalu is documented well, the others are left with thin sketches.

Balraj, the good-hearted alcoholic, is given little room to develop, and it is hard to see how his repeated drunken brawls add value. You wish you knew more about Uday’s digital solution for handloom weavers, but he is reduced to the supportive boyfriend. Parvathalu’s elder sister exists only to be held up as a cautionary example.

Even the subplot of Keerthi attending spoken English classes to please her fiancé — a hoot — is abandoned abruptly. The film dwells on toxicity and emotional blackmail without fully exploring Keerthi’s own contradictions.

The filmmaker saves the best for the overlong yet impressive climax, tracing Parvathalu’s moral decline as he goes to any length to organise the wedding.