Krishna & His Leela Is  Interesting When Not Trying To Be ‘Cool’

Krishna & His Leela(Telugu, Netflix)

Starring Sidhu Jonnalagadda, Shraddha Srinath, Shalini Vadnikatti , Seerat Kapoor

Direction: Ravikanth Perepu

Rating: ** ½ (two and a half stars)

Okay, here is the  question of  the day. Can a man be in love with two women at  the same time? He  can! If he happens to be as  juvenile,petulant, privileged and spoilt as  Krishna(Sidhu Jonnalagadda,  passably  likeable)  .

Krishna thinks the  world is a romantic playing field. Though we do see him  at a job place  at one point  in  the story  most of  his time goes into deciding which among the two girls to date  and which one can wait, how to  hoodwink the current to  start on  a clean slate.

Two-timing as an art form has never been  more  brazenly  displayed as   a cinematic device  in any film that I remember seeing. Most of  the time, director Ravikanth Perepu lets his horny horny  be. If he is happy to sow is  ‘child’ oats , so are we. The narrative tries to be  literate with references  to the ironies  of   life popping up for  no  other reason than to ensure we don’t think the protagonist to be a juvenile delinquent .

The film has a  cocky jaunty air to  its storytelling. And  when it is not trying to hard  to be  ‘cool’(our  modernday Krishna Kanhaiya  uses the ‘F’ word like it’s  his birthright to be a liberal  on  the digital platform) the  narrative actually manages to be  sassy virile and tongue-in-cheek .  Refreshingly  the hero is  stripped of  all his heroic qualities. He  throws tantrums  at  the drop of  a  hat and cries  like  baby when at the start, Satya(Shraddha Srinath) leaves him. It doesn’t take him   long to fall in love again , this time with Radha(Shalini Vadnkatti).

 Most of  the film finds Krishna  swinging  like a pendulum  from one women to another, Luckily for us, there is no hiding-girl-in-the cupboard-when-other-girl-suddenly-arrives  sequence.No  attempt is made  to  satirize  Krishna two-timing tendencies. In fact we feel  sorry for  the hero because at  the end he  is left with neither woman.

Incidentally at some  point Krishna’s estranged father  barges in to suggest that two-timing can be genealogical. So can stupidity, if you think about  it.

Frankly , after a point we don’t care a damn which  of the two ladies   ‘gets’ the hero, as long as we get a way out  of this two-timing-is-cool baloney. It is  good  to see a film so non-judgmental in  its attitude towards  its  protagonist.But after a point Krishna’s  vacillation  becomes a pain the  ass.He thinks he is interesting because he is dating two women. And  the  director seems to agree with Krishna. If you think  about it Krishna  is actually as aimless and pointless as any  metropolitan wastrel  his age. Luckily this mildly engaging film is neither aimless .Just pointless.

 If it had not  tried so hard to make its hero a sanitized  version  of Arjun Reddy, Krishna & His Leela would have  made a lot more sense.