Beeruva Review

It all begins with a beeruva, a wooden armoire that ends up at the home of a woman who's lovingly decorating her new duplex. Imagine her surprise when it turns out to have a voice. Now, imagine our surprise when she oh so matter-of-factly settles down to listen to its life story, which turns out to be the life story of Sanju (Sundeep Kishan). This first scene is a mere symptom of a phlegmatic acceptance of insanity that runs rampant in the story of Beeruva.

Take, for instance, our protagonist. Sanju, as he explains at far greater length than should be allowed, has turned to the nearest beeruva for solace ever since the first time he had to run from his rightfully aggrieved father (Naresh). He has woven tales in there, eaten, studied, slept, and even taken vacations. And the fact that his parents have never thought to take him to see a shrink apparently implies that we, the audience, are supposed to take his closet love (ahem!) to be a quirk, rather than a behavioral issue symptomatic of deep psychological problems.

Shockingly enough (not!), as we learn, the rest of the plot could've done quite easily without having various storage units shoehorned into it at every opportunity, leading us to assume that Big Beeruva had its sinister invisible hand in the making of the film. See, it's established pretty early on in the film that Sanju is a bit of a good-for-naughter who lives to get a raise out of his father, presumably so he has an excuse for withdrawing into almirah-land. Coincidentally, recent science has shown that this is classic addict behavior. When your brain finds an experience rewarding, it constantly tries to trick you into repeating that behaviour just so it can get another hit of that sweet, sweet dopamine. Why are we talking about behavioral science? Because it is a helluva lot more interesting, and we are slaves to our brain in avoiding stuff that is not rewarding.

So anyway, the businessman father loses a fartload of money, and Sanju steps in to ostensibly save the day, and feeds his father some cockamamie about a politician/gunda who'll play collection agent. So the two go looking for Adikesava (Mukesh Rishi), in Vijayawada. While they are in the lion's den, so to speak, Sanju starts sniffing around the lion's daughter, Swathi (Surabhi). And thus begins an interminable comedy of errors that is a tad deficient in the former and kind of ODs on the latter.

The thing about getting novel ideas is that you then have to do the work. Sundeep Kishan, a rather good actor with an unaffected manner about him, seems to have discovered a bit later into the film that he was taken in by a "quirky" script. You can see his performance getting more and more strained as the plot gets more and more convoluted. The few laughs here and there are drawn inspite of your brain's insistance that this is stupid. And those laughs owe themselves to the fact that both Naresh and Mukesh Rishi are just really good at being funny. Surabhi is really pretty, and shows a hint of talent that is nipped in the bud by an inadequate character.

The music and the cinematography, unlike the screenplay, are top-notch, wearing their quality beginnings on the sleeve. The songs are quite catchy and well-shot.

Beeruva is a film that could've been better had that not been its name. The only thing you'll take away from this one is that "beeruva" just does not work as a catchphrase.