Ante... Sundaraniki!

Sundar is from a Brahmin family. Leela is Christian. They have known each other since childhood and are together now. They want to marry but neither family will accept it. They make a plan: each will tell their own family a lie that makes the other side acceptable. The lie starts small. Then another lie is needed to hold up the first, then a medical report, then a false relative. The two families come together. The narrative moves in flashbacks and tells how everything reached this point, starting from Sundar's birth. Vivek Athreya writes and directs. Nani plays Sundar and Nazriya Nazim plays Leela; Naresh and Rohini are in the cast. The language is Telugu. Nazriya Nazim is known from Malayalam cinema and this is her first Telugu film. The form is fragmented; time goes back and forth and the same event repeats from different angles. The matter it treats is the approval of a family; neither of the two can stand up to their parents directly and all the comedy comes from that. The film makes the difference of religion its conflict but shows neither side as bad. The narrative builds particular neighbourhoods of Hyderabad in detail. It constructs the growth of the lies like a system, each step resting on the one before. Its limit is length; the narrative is long, the flashbacks break the pace, and the ending is rushed. Who it is for: viewers who like Telugu comedy and family films. Who it is not for: it is long, scattered, and the ending easy.