Jeevi Rating: 4/5 (Four)
Genre: Youth
Cast: Venu, Shaheen & Prema
Music: Mani Sharma
Story & Dialogues: Trivikram
Director & Screenplay: Ram Prasad
Producer: Shyam Prasad
Theatrical Release Date: 10th November 2000

Story

Venu (Venu) is an orphan, who is brought up by his mama (Chandra Mohan). Venu's mama wants to marry him off with his daughter Aruna (Prema). But during the marriage, Aruna runs away from her home quoting that Venu's qualification of cookery expert is not suitable for her. She preferred a better life by eloping with a rich guy with good educational qualification.

Venu, whose philosophy is to live happily with smile all the time, does not take this issue seriously as he has a matured head. Now Venu goes to the city to find a job by staying at a friend place. There he meets Sandhya (Shaheen), who is another happy-go-lucky girl. During a party night, her soft drinks glass was adulterated with alcohol and she was about to be raped by goons. Then Venu makes a heroic act by saving the heroine by bashing the goons. A happy and inebriated Sandhya plants a kiss on the cheeks of Venu as a token appreciation.

Over a period of time Sandhya becomes pretty close to Venu and both of them are fond of each other. During the birthday bash of Sandhya, she announces that she is going to get married soon and introduces Pratap (Prakash Raj) as her fiancée. Venu, who assumed that she was marrying him, did get upset and feels that she cheated him. When asked about his disappointment, Venu tells Sandhya that he loves her for which she says sorry.

Even after the engagement ceremony of Sandhya and Pratap, Venu believes that Sandhya still loves him, but she is not in a position to know her heart. Venu pursues his quest for the love of Sandhya. Meantime, Sandhya observes the characters of selfish Pratap and smile-always Venu. Though she realizes the selfishness and cheating attitude of Pratap, she still sticks to Pratap and prefers him.

By this time the director increases the tempo of audience wanting to Sandhya to know her heart and go for Venu. Meantime, Venu gets a call from a police station that his sister-in-law Aruna is stationed there. The police grabbed her when she tried going for a suicide on necklace road. Her lover cheated Aruna after elopement and they did not have any physical interaction. Venu gets back her to his home and heals her off all her emotional wounds. Sandhya, who observes the entire episode from a close distance, becomes a biggest admirer of Venu. She feels that Venu is the best friend of her.

Just a day prior to her marriage, Sandhya, who caught in the jinx, asks her mother about her definition of love. Her mother gives the golden words of love saying 'Its better to marry a person who loves you than marrying a person whom you love'. Those words change the mind and heart of Sandhya and she decides to get back to Venu and dump Pratap. When she expresses the same to her father, he ridicules her letting him know just before marriage and asks her to marry Pratap at any cost.

And Sandhya turns a runaway bride and goes to Venu's house with marriage costumes. But Venu, who has his own attitude and wisdom, refuses to marry her and forces her in getting her back to the kalyan mandap where she is supposed to tie knot to Pratap.

Here is the scene poised for the climax! Venu loves Sandhya. Sandhya Loves Venu too. Aruna, who eloped from the marriage hall, is back with Venu. The one who eloped with Aruna is none but Pratap. At the same time, Venu does not tell Sandhya that Pratap is the culprit. Will Venu marry Sandhya or he gets back to Aruna and marry her? So many questions would be answered by a sweet climax only if you watch this film on a silver screen. It's worth all the money you spent!

Performances

Venu: Venu played a role that is close to his heart, just like that one in Swayamvaram. He did not act in this film. He just gave expressions. He helped his role gets right kind of projection, as he is not handsome. At the same time he projected unmatched attitude through his role. Venu is slowly carving a niche for himself as hero in Telugu movie market.

Shaheen: Shaheen, another fair skinned import from North, did display her charms along with doing some fine acting. She had a dream role in this film. A bright aspect of the heroine in this film is the way she was projected with different costumes and different hairstyles for this film. She had around 4 types of hairstyles for each song and none of the hairstyles is repeated. That's the reason why she looks different in each and every song, which has become another crowd pulling factor for the youth to watch the film for the second time.

Prakash Raj: He did a character of his kind in this film, which is full of selfishness and vices. But the comedy touch of his role is intact.

Technical departments:

Screenplay & direction: Ram Prasad is another young director that belongs to the genre of Vijay Bhaskar and Karunakaran. There is freshness throughout the film and the way he projected the inscrutable character of Venu is simply amazing. It's a popular technique to mask the behavior and think process of the main complex character and narrating the story through the other character's angle. And Ram Prasad mastered that technique and shown the Venu's character as unpredictable yet sweet character.

Story& Dialogues: Trivikram should get equal credit for the success of the film. Without the dialogues of Trivikram, this film would have been very dry. He is equally good at writing thought provoking as well as casual dialogues. No wonder all the three films he worked for in 2000, Ninne Premista, Nuvve Kavali and Chiru Navvutho has become blockbusters. He is also writing dialogues for Venky's 'Nuvvu Naaku Nachav'. He is slowly turning out to be dependable person, whose presence can change the fate of the film.

Choreography: Though the music is of average taste, it is the scintillating choreography and cute cinematography that made all the songs worth a watch. And the foreign locates add to the luster too.

Production: SP Entertainments that is formed by the college time friend of hero Venu have repeated the magic of 'Swayam Varam' in a magnified scale.

Analysis: Treatment and the dialogues are the highlights of this film. When you cast a new hero, its very easy to make the viewers involved with the character and fall in love with it. The same thing happened with Chiru Navvuto too. By taking a two film old as hero and another debutant as heroine, the producers have introduced another brilliant director Ram Prasad. Ram Prasad is directing a film with Balayya now. The earlier director introduced by SP entertainments, Vijaya Bhaskar has delivered Nuvve Kavali. Just like any other good movie, this film too picked up by the word of mouth by the satisfied viewers and went on to become a big hit in the turbulent time of Telugu cinema.