The USP of 'My Dear Donga' is how love blossoms between the robber and a young woman stuck in an unhappy relationship.
A poster of the film 'My Dear Donga'. (X)
Light-hearted rom-coms with some fun always make for a good stress buster. My Dear Donga, directed by BS Sarwagna Kumar, fits perfectly in this category.
The storyline of My Dear Donga is paper thin but Shalini Kondepudi, who has written the story and acted, ensures there is some good situational humour in the movie.
The subject of My Dear Donga focuses on new-age relationships and the small things, which matter in the long run.
Sujatha (Shalini Kandepudi) has been in a relationship for over two years with Vishal (Nikhil Gajula).
Vishal is a doctor who lies to his girlfriend about being in an ICU when he is actually watching a cricket match with his friends. Apart from this, he also occasionally ignores her with some excuse.
Things reach a crescendo when Sujatha learns that there is no ICU in the workplace of Vishal. She catches him red-handed handed watching a cricket match with a friend.
Naturally, Sujatha is devastated and reaches home broken mentally.
A robber named Suresh (Abhinav Gomatam) is already in her house and picks up a few valuables. Initially, she is shocked but soon, Sujatha and Suresh start conversing with each other as they have some commonalities in terms of family backgrounds, they hate their respective fathers.
Things get more complicated with the arrival of Vishal and her two friends. They visit Sujatha’s house to celebrate her birthday, and Sujatha introduces Suresh as her childhood friend.
The rest of the story is about how the birthday party goes and how she develops feelings towards Suresh.
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Team ‘My Dear Donga’. (X)
A strong aspect of My Dear Donga is its crisp running time. At one hour and 43 minutes, the movie never feels dragged out.
Director BS Sarwagna quickly establishes the thorny relationship of Sujatha and Vishal.
Here, it has to be said that Sujatha is telling her story to a bartender who listens to her with complete attention. His reaction shots coupled with the conversations between them raise many chuckles.
How Sujatha develops feelings towards Suresh and the blossoming of love has been etched well.
A good example of this is when Suresh takes Sujatha & Co out, giving a huge surprise by celebrating her birthday with cake.
The situational humour involving Abhinav Gomatam also has some fun moments.
Special mention must be of the scenes where Divya Sripada’s character questions Abhinav Gomatam’s Suresh about where he and Sujatha met and which school they studied in.
As mentioned above, My Dear Donga focuses on the small things that matter in a relationship. Arranging surprise party poppers, washing the plates, and spending more time with the girl you love may appear trivial. But sometimes, these very same things give big happiness. This aspect has come out strongly.
Ajay Arasada’s music could have been more soulful, but still, the tunes go with the movie’s flow. The title song “My Dear Donga” has been well-tuned.
There isn’t much scope for cinematography here given the setting but still, the film looks good visually.
Apart from relatively weak music, the reasons for Abhinav Gomatam’s Suresh becoming a burglar does not make much logical sense.
Also, we are never shown whether the mother comes to know about her son being a robber or not.
In the initial portion of the movie, we hear her voice. But after the family backgrounds are discussed, there is no mention of her.
Abhinav Gomatam and Shalini Kandepudi do most of the heavy lifting.
Abhinav Gomatam’s ability to generate humour is of course well known. Here too, the actor does not disappoint. He plays the loveable thief with a lot of charm.
Apart from the comic scenes Abhinav also proves his versatility in the portions where Suresh gives wisdom.
As the story progresses, Shalini Kondepudi brings in both the required innocence and the strong-headed nature.
The rest of the actors do as required.
My Dear Donga makes for a good weekend watch in the family. Some moments in the film will definitely connect to this generation.
It is streaming on AHA.
(Views expressed here are personal.)
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