'Oh Bhama Ayyo Rama' Movie Review: An Earnest Suhas in a Charmless Rom-com

In a throwaway dialogue in the film, Suhas says any Telugu film needs emotion, drama, and love to get cracking. Oh Bhama Ayyo Rama, does have a half-interesting love story to keep it going — the romance between the timid Ram (Suhas) and a chaotic Bhama (Malavika Manoj). But the film, for the most part, fails on the other two accounts.

Freshness is almost sacrosanct to a genre like a romcom, which has been fortifying our cinemas for many years. Halfway through Oh Bhama Ayyo Rama, we’ve already been shown a dead mother’s wish, a wealthy daddy’s girl falling for a middle-class boy, and the shadow of a rigid father looming on the sidelines. Make of this information what you will. The film begins with a young Ram traumatised by his mother’s passing. The tragedy makes him repress his emotions and his desire to be a filmmaker. Years later, he is a studious US aspirant who lives with his uncle (Ali), along with the occasional company of his two friends. When everyone raises glasses full of rustic home-concocted cocktails, Ram is happy gulping milk. So obviously, he falls for Bhama, who almost kills him in a drunken accident in their first meet-cute.

Malavika Manoj in a still from 'Oh Bhama Ayyo Rama'

It’s hard to find traces of freshness in Oh Bhama Ayyo Rama, which is largely obsessed with exhausting stereotypes. Even if the level is measured —so instead of a blown-up fight sequence, we have the boy-saves-girl trope play out with the boy threatening the goon with just a witty retort — the intent remains dated. Comedy tracks involving revolting jokes on women and people of different sizes (this is the kind of film that has an elaborate joke just to take digs at little people with tasteless double entendres) are always in ample supply.

In another film, Ram and Bhama might have been a light, breezy watch. Bhama is the alpha in the relationship, and this occasionally brings in some surprising mirth in the movie, especially in scenes where she stands up for her agency with her family. But in many other moments, the film uses her assertiveness, less as a character trait, and more as a tool to nudge her into being the crazy woman who goes on to call herself the “most beautiful woman in the entire world,” every chance she gets. Malavika Manoj and Suhas share a sincere chemistry, but most of that is pitifully wasted in an aimless film that wastes much of its runtime on songs rather than character development. 

Suhas in a still from 'Oh Bhama Ayyo Rama'

There are moments in the film where it doesn’t take itself so seriously. So we have absurdist stretches involving Bhama, monologuing imaginary screenplay ideas. And then there are moments where the film takes things a little more seriously, like when it delves into a young Ram’s frayed relationship with his father, which leaves him with plenty of trauma. But the film doesn’t have any patience to deal with anything real, and consequently, neither do we with the film.