100 Days of Love: Dragging narrative

Malayalam superstar Mammootty is a familiar name in Tollywood circles for his films - both originally made and the dubbed ones from the coconut land.His son Dulquer Salman, a heartthrob already across the southern celluloid world follows his dad footsteps with a maiden dubbed venture from his home ground.

Dulquer is a known name, courtesy his earlier release ‘ OK Bangaram’, a Tamil dubbed film of Mani Ratnam that went on to receive a rousing response in Telugu He was paired in it with petite Nithya Menen, another well-known heroine in south, and who matched the hero with her own brand of histrionics.

Hence, ‘100 Days of Love’, on the face of it, had everything snug fitting, with the Mani Ratnam film pair starring in it once again and promising to be a romantic film, a surefire crowd puller among the young crowd. The Malayalam film released nearly 18 months ago was a major hit, despite mixed reviews.

In the Telugu version, the difference in approach from the original strikes the viewer as soon as the titles roll out and the lead character is introduced.

Debutant director Jenuse Mohamed, in sync with the story narration pattern of the Malayali audience takes his time to warm up to the story, interspersing it with an approach that is languid to say the least. From this point to the way the proceedings spread out, what is considered normal elsewhere becomes a drag of an exercise in Telugu.