Buchi Babu Sana’s Peddi is a wiggly, shapeless form of every commercial drama we’ve seen before. At times it’s an underdog’s slow coming-of-age story. A few other times, it’s a lilting sports saga about the power of grit. And in small but gratifying amounts, it's also a human drama about lessons in failure. It sort of throws everything against the wall and sees what sticks. And it… sticks. It sticks enough for us to suddenly shift in our seats and notice.
Peddi has something unique to offer — something that sets it apart from generic potboilers we’re used to tolerating: infinite amounts of self-awareness... and an in-form Ram Charan.
The Telugu film is consumed by this odd yet scrappy never-give-up energy. A philosophy it borrows from its lead Peddi (Ram Charan), a brash cricketer in rural Andhra Pradesh in the '80s. But sports isn’t just braggadocio in 'Peddi' world — the film routinely pipes in with reminders. Ram Charan moulds the colonial sport into his own hand, slapping it with the inimitable sensibilities only lovers of “mass” understand. Peddi does a small push-up between balls, leaps on the ground, and does a full dance routine with his bat on the pitch. But when the bat is not a tool for bravado, it is a weapon. A weapon used against wealthy oppressors who play the sport for pride. It is also the occasional shield that lets him look away from his own identity as a migrant labourer from a nameless village. But none of this depth is apparent in the film at first glance.
Buchi Babu spends the first half of the film setting up the milieu. The concept of cricketers for hire — Peddi doesn’t have the privilege to play for a team — gives the film a very interesting perspective, subtly telling us that there is more of this to come. But this is also where it lays bare its obvious chinks in the armour. Peddi lives his life by one motto: it is that he has but one life. This leads to some solid moments of drama towards the end, but also momentary doom. Janhvi Kapoor plays the forgettable Achiamma, who is forgettable even to the hero. And by that we mean, Peddi remembers her not by her face, but her waist. These scenes, shot with an intentionally unsettling male gaze, are impossible to sit through. Peddi’s skewed sense of moral high ground is on full display here as he deems it right to kiss without consent, but is outraged when the abuse comes from another man. It’s almost as if the filmmaker goes, ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I’ll come back to the film a bit later’.
The film hems and haws for our lost patience in the second half. And we begrudgingly give in; Peddi is fully aware of its limitations in writing. However, the secondary characters are incredibly interesting on paper. Jagapathi Babu plays Suri, a village leader who truly believes the fate of his village is deeply entwined with denied mobility (the local train refuses to stop at their village, reminiscent of Mari Selvaraj’s Karnan). Shiva Rajkumar plays Gournaidu, a gracefully ageing kusthi champion who places the game above accomplishment. The film doesn’t have the deftness to treat these characters with real nuance, but what it does have is the ability to trust in its lead actor’s ability to react.
One of the best lines in Peddi comes very offhandedly through Ram Charan, who observes success, “I’ve understood that we live in a world where people listen to winners.” A dialogue like this comes out of nowhere and makes us rethink all these scenes we’ve watched again, as Ram Charan gives Peddi immense physical and emotional heft to take it from a place of superficial masala to engaging commercial cinema.
DOP Rathnavelu and editor Naveen Nooli work overtime with Charan to gently push the film a little past the finish line, giving it an edge that seems exceedingly fresh for a full-meals entertainer. We have dolly zoom to convey intricate emotions, match cuts to keep things terrifically sleek, and film negative shots to depict a mood shift, making up for what the film lacks in writing.
One of the film's most interesting aspects is that there is no real villain. Now, a reading of this could be that Peddi has characters who don't really give the hero a good fight. But there is space for another argument. Divyenndu plays one of the bad guys, but the real villain here is circumstance. In any other film, this wouldn't be cause for any real celebration. But it's nice for a film like this show us success and failure in equal measure and have us sit with in discomfort along with its hero. Peddi does have a problem of the excesses and suffers from an overstretched climax. But by the end we don't really mind. It's the good bits that remain.