'Sarangapani Jathakam' Movie Review: Priyadarshi and Vennela Kishore Liven Up This Comedy

Director: Mohanakrishna Indraganti
Writer: Mohanakrishna Indraganti
Cast: Priyadarshi, Roopa Koduvayur, Vennela Kishore, VK Naresh, Tanikella Bharani, Avasarala Srinivas, Viva Harsha
Language: Telugu

Just as Chitti Babu, the character played by Rajendra Prasad in Aa Okkati Adakku (1992), was convinced by an astrologer that he would be king one day, Priyadarshi’s Sarangapani is influenced by a palmist that he will soon commit a crime beyond his imagination.

The theme of a person fighting their own fate has often been used in Indian cinema to hilarious results, and the reliable voice of Mohanakrishna Indraganti has a crack at it with Sarangapani Jathakam. Priyadarshi plays the titular character, an affable car salesman who is obsessed with what lies in the future and whose life takes a rather interesting turn when he is struck by a bizarre prediction from a dicey palm reader (played by Avasarala Srinivas, who calls himself an “occult chiromantist”). What follows is a spiral of absurdity: Sarangapani loses all sense of judgment, sabotages his own love life, and then plunges headlong into the mess that his own mind created. 

It helps that he has his childhood best friend and colleague Chandra (Vennela Kishore) by his side to indulge and mindlessly encourage him in this pursuit, in turn giving rise to some delightfully over-the-top moments. Why doesn’t Chandra advise Saranga to see another astrologer to confirm the suspicions? Why does he easily agree to partake in his friend’s quest for transgression? Our job isn’t to wonder but to simply accept the campiness of it all, trusting the genre and the filmmaker behind it to help everything work.

Sarangapani Jathakam uses many such tall contrivances in its favour to spin a yarn that only grows chaotic and confused with time. Indraganti has proven in the past with films like Ashta Chamma (2008) (based on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest) that he can control a labyrinthine plot with finesse and orchestrate it with his unique brand of humour, interpersonal dynamics and word-play. His latest film inspires similar confidence in certain parts, but the same assured hand of the past isn’t fully at play here. While the central idea of the film is exciting and full of promise, its layering and eventual execution on-screen feel deliberate and not deft.

If the logical loopholes gnaw at us for a while, the lack of a strong conflict in the story hampers it a little more. We understand how much Maithili (Roopa Koduvayur) means to Saranga and why he would go to great lengths to keep his fixation with horoscopes a secret. In the same vein, it becomes important to also emphasise the intensity of that fixation so as to justify the desperation behind all the hijinks he pulls off with Chandra. When we don’t get the latter, the story doesn’t resonate as intended and the plot meanders a little, using convenience in its stride for the sake of entertainment.

While the first half sees Saranga make early forays into his madness and make many rookie mistakes (the entire premise is about him being done with the said crime and cleansing his jathakam), the second half is where he (and the film) rises to the occasion with a more solid plan. A new lot of characters join him and Chandra and the narrative becomes intentionally disorderly in a Priyadarshan-esque manner, but what Sarangapani Jathakam lacks is a tightly wound script to serve this ambition. There’s no strong reason why Maithili or other ancillary characters enter the complication and try to raise the stakes, or why Saranga thinks of an alternative plan at any point. 

Yet, the film stays afloat because of Indraganti's linguistic flair and how he easily stages comedy. Priyadarshi and Vennela Kishore are a riot in one another’s company and the inclusion of another strong performer like Viva Harsha (as their childhood friend) kicks things up a few notches.

Sarangapani Jathakam brims with superb one-liners and sharp-witted banter that somehow cover up the cracks and keep us engaged throughout. The romance is neat, the drama isn’t forced, and there’s also the endearing innocence of the protagonist that is likely to remind one of the sensibility of filmmaker Jandhyala. What Mohanakrishna Indraganti perhaps needed was to be more unpredictable with his storytelling, and add layering to it to bring out the best from his idea; still, there’s lots to savour here.