Let's remember those Happy Days. Review on Happy Days - Telugu Movie

Sekhar Kammula has done it again. He comes up with a brilliant piece of work. His story of seven friends and their journey through the four years of engineering, “Happy Days” is creating waves. We can see the making of a great film maker, each movie after movie in him. We can see his talent shining brightly in a number of scenes in the movie. In the well rounded personalities given to each character. In the way he brings out the beauty of life in small things (he gained lot of expertise in this particular thing), the every day happenings in a student’s life, their fears, aspirations, crushes, dreams, successes, failures and fantasies. Happy Days has done many things that Tollywood has never done before. Some of them are worth mentioning.

1. This is the only Telugu Movie that really understood the psyche and life of the students. It doesn’t give you that yucky feeling normal youthful college Telugu Films give. May be because it is made by a film maker who really was a student in his life, who studied hard to achieve what he wants to do in life. (Sekhar Kammula is an alumnus of CBIT, the college in which the movie was taken and went to US to study chemical Engineering and Film Making. He was a Project Manager in Polaris before he quit his job when he was making “Godavari”) He might have thought that we need a youthful Movie which we can call really our own and has come out with flying colors.

   
   




2. The students do not make fun of their professors and the principal do not ogle at the lady lecturers.

   
   




3. The Characters do not fall in love just for the hell of it.

   
   




4. The student groups do not fight with each other not knowing what to do. There is also no hero gang and villain gang.

   
   




5. There is no hero who glorifies his richness or physique or some nonsense and there are no droves of girls who run after him.

   
   

Characterizations:Chandu (Sandesh), Rajesh (Nikhil), Shankar (Vamsi Krishna), Tyson (Raahul), Madhu (Tamanna), Appu (Gayatri Rao) and Sangeeta (Monali Chowdary) join an Engineering College. In a short time they become close friends. As they pass through their college years, they undergo all that an engineering student experiences. Their journey through the four years of engineering life is what we fall in love with and want to experience again and again. We feel very bad that those happy days are gone and will never come back. Sekhar Kammula has given beautiful characterizations to them.

1.The Characters having crush on their friends and still performing well in their studies. This is quite true and contrary to the general belief.

1. The Characters of Tyson, Rajesh and Appu. Tyson is an intelligent guy who has a crush on his senior. He gives up his computer science seat to his friend. His sorrow when he comes to know that he is being cheated by a girl and he getting back stabbed by him, but still caring for his friend just for the sake of “Enthaina Vadu Mana Friend Kada Ra” (After all he is our friend) and the departing scene when his love is broken is simply outstanding. His way of talking, his make up are superb. All scenes involving Tyson and Shravs are great. Tyson sensing that Shravya is going to reject him is damn good. Tyson is one of the most beautiful characters ever written on Telugu Cinema screen.

   
   




2. The scenes when Appu cries for Rajesh and Rajesh proposes to her.

   
   




3. In the campus interviews, Wipro rejects Rajesh due to lack of communication skills. The stout senior who fights with Rajesh all through the movie tries his best to help him get through successfully. Rajesh apologizes and asks him what made him help so much; he simply replies “we are from the same college ra”.

   
   




4. The guy from Srikakulam (place in Eastern Andhra Pradesh where people speak different slang of Telugu than what is normally spoken) cries finding it difficult to catch the name of Michael Jackson. It is uttered by his seniors during the ragging at the beginning of the movie. At the end of the movie he attends the campus interview and blasts in authentic English about the inequalities in opportunities available to students in cities and villages and how he wants to change that.

   
   




5. Rajesh explaining his father that he did not fail in the exams, but they are actually called backlogs.

   
   

There are many more which we got to watch and enjoy. He did not touch some issues like caste politics, engineering colleges are obsessed with. They need not be discussed in a fine movie like this.

Performances:The cast is a new one. However, they acted in an extremely natural way. We see the Characters not the actors or actresses. As the movie passes we understand each of the characters. All of them did a splendid job. Rahul as Tyson, Nikhil as Rajesh, Gayatri Rao as Appu and Sonia as the senior girl with whom Tyson falls in love steal the show just as we start understanding their characters. Their performances are far ahead compared to the performances of the star sons debuting these days. Sekhar Kammula’s regular Kamalinee Mukherjee stars in a cameo of English Lecturer.

Music:“Jill Jill Jinga” is going to be the Anthem for College going students for a long time to come like “Gajuvaka Pilla” did in my college days. “Oh My Friend” has some wonderful soft beats and smooth flowing that grows on us as we start listening to it. I simply could not stop listening to the song. It has already entered the Most Heard smart play list on my IPod. “Arey rey” song keeps repeating with different lyrics all through the movie. On the whole Mickey J Meyer’s music is refreshing and he has shown some strong signs of becoming the next icon.

Others: I do not know much about Editing and Photography. So, I do not want to comment on that. It seems editing is very important for a movie like this that the screenplay appears smooth for audience. In this sense Marthand K Venkatesh has done a good job. Dialogues by Sekhar Kammula are first rate.

Verdict: You got to watch the movie, if u does not want to miss those few moments which are worth the whole life. It is one of those rare movies you can take your friends who do not know Telugu along with you. A Youthful Telugu Movie which family audience need not have an issue to watch. Happy Days is on its way to become one of the best movies ever produced on Telugu Screen. Do you want to be left out?

And finally

I miss watching the movie in Andhra Pradesh. The luxury of Greater Union Cinemas in Sydney is no match to the experience of watching the movie at Urvasi in Vijayawada or Jagadamba in Vizag or IMAX in Hyderabad, jam packed with college bunking students.