Phalana Abbayi Phalana Ammayi movie review: A floundering tale of bland love

‘Phalana Abbayi Phalana Ammayi’ marks director Srinivas Avasarala and actor Naga Shaurya’s third collaboration. Their previous outings – ‘Oohalu Gusagusalade’ and ‘Jo Achyuthananda’ were hit-and-miss affairs. This third collaboration had good expectations due to the catchy, very native title, and promos. Also, Malvika Nair is doing her second film with Naga Shaurya after Nandini Reddy’s Kalyana Vaibhogame.

‘Phalana Abbayi Phalana Ammayi’ portrays the love story of Sanjay (Naga Sahurya) and Anupama (Malvika Nair), in a span of ten years, in an episodic structure with the narrative jumping forward and back constantly. They meet each other in an engineering college as junior and second year senior, respectively. Though a senior by one year, Anupama takes a liking to Sanjay instantly due to his helping nature and disarming attitude. They gradually become close friends, forming a group with other friends like Valentine Ravi, Keerthi. After this bonding, the story shifts to UK, showing them in their final years of study. Sanjay and Anupama live close to each other with friends, then shift into one flat as live-in partners; slowly becoming a couple waiting to culminate their relationship. Other interests come and go – Anupama rejects Srinivas Avasarala’s character Giri’s advances, saying that she finds the relation with Sanjay more promising. She later rejects another attempt at pairing her with a childhood acquaintance when they go to attend her sister’s marriage. As everything seems heavenly in the lovers’ abode, she suspects that she has breast cancer. As she hopes to cross this test in life with Sanjay’s support, she watches him drift apart due to inexplicable reasons.

What happens further in their lives? Who else comes into their lives? Why did Sanjay become aloof? Do they ever come together or not…the answers to these questions forms the rest of the story.

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Though everything looks good on paper for this story, the execution falls flat with bland narration, lack of emotions and no real substance in the love or hate between the lovers. The audience expects a fun ride and sensitive portrayal from a writer like Avasarala. But he fails in terms of writing and also direction. The chemistry between the actors is hardly there. The comedy has few flashes, but it never sustains to really engage and entertain the viewers.

Malvika Nair looks captivating with her big emotive eyes. Naga Shaurya is hardly there in the character and his portrayal isn’t convincing at all. The friend playing Valentine Ravi does a good job, but even his character also comes and goes. The girl who played Neelima in the second half managed to evoke laughter with her effortless dialogue delivery.

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Music director Kalyani Malik tries his best to lift up the proceedings. His background score is perhaps the only saving grace of the film.

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Phalana Abbayi Phalana Ammayi never reaches the potential promised, always floundering about. You can wait for the film to release on an OTT platform.