On a bright and sunny Ugadi morning, my mom and I decided to spend the day together by watching a movie in a theatre. After a lot of deliberation and thought, we zeroed in on the movie 'The Family Star'. We stepped into the theatre with a lot of anticipation and excitement, but little did we expect the turn things would take.
For the very first time we were in a theatre with less than 20 people. There weren't many hoots and claps like how it happens for a regular commercial film. There were minimal reactions to all the humor and elevations given to the main lead. Honestly, we had a satisfactory experience, and the songs too were ringing in our heads. Did everyone else have the same experience as us? Apparently, no.
It seems a lot of people didn't like the film because they felt it carried the same old trope of commercial films and had certain unnecessary sequences which didn't elevate the film but instead downplayed its content.
This response from people caught me off guard. A star like Vijay Devarakonda struggling to pull the audience to theatres despite having a storyline that can easily connect to all the middle-class people? Of course, I agree there are exaggerations that could have been chopped down from the runtime to make it a crisper film but discarding the film on a whole due to certain preconceived notions and half-baked statements? That is a big no.
I was watching few videos on the internet where people were giving their reactions and reviews about the movie. Few of them sounded rational with their viewpoint, but a few of them went too personal- bringing in their own equation with the actor into the picture.
I feel a lot of times actors are judged as a whole on the basis of the kind of scripts they select and the way they are presented on screen. What we fail to realise is that the actor is just playing the character and the character is not the person himself. VD was someone who got type-casted into a certain set of roles after Arjun Reddy. The audience felt he always tried to carry himself as per his popular reel life character.
If you don't like the movie in terms of a movie perspective, then you have the right to point out flaws. But when you look at a movie not in terms of its storyline and technical intricacies, but with a tainted perspective- bringing in personal lives and remarks made by the actor at some point into the equation, I don't think it is fair. A movie is not only the actor's hardwork, but there are a lot of people involved behind the scenes whose contributions don't come into light. Just because we have a bad precedent about the main lead doesn't mean we start scrutinizing everything in the movie and going into the theatre with a mindset to bash the film no matter what message or idea it conveys in the end.
I personally felt the movie had a great premise and accurately depicted the problems faced by an Indian middle-class family. Just like how no movie is perfect in totality, this one too has few flaws and logical discrepancies. But on the whole it gave us such a good vibe and hard-hitting facts to ponder upon.
On the whole, I would just like to say one thing. If you want to have a hearty laugh in the theatre and understand the importance of having a good family, don't miss the film and watch it at the nearest theatres!
- Anusha Sridhar
