Happy Days

Sekhar Kammula's 2007 Telugu film follows four years of eight young people entering engineering college. It departs from the usual template of Indian campus films: there is no large event and no villain, only examinations, friendships, first loves and the approach of graduation. Kammula worked entirely with new performers, which gives the film its naturalness; it is among Tamannaah Bhatia's early work. The path it opened in Telugu cinema matters: it showed that a youth film could be made at a realistic scale without a star at the centre, and many similar films followed over the next decade. Its weakness is a runtime near three hours and some repeated sections. Who it's for: viewers who like the realist vein of Telugu cinema and campus stories. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a defined plot, or who will find the length and the repetitions wearing.