Darling Krishna, Milana can't save this boring relationship drama

Love Birds

Kannada (Theatres)

Director: PC Shekhar

Cast: Darling Krishna, Milana Nagaraj, Sadhu Kokila, Rangayana Raghu

Rating: 2/5

PC Shekhar’s Love Birds is a textbook case of a terribly-made relationship drama. For most Kannada filmmakers, the genre is just an excuse to churn out mindless comedy and needless melodrama.

In Love Birds, Deepak (Darling Krishna), a software engineer, marries Pooja (Milana Nagaraj), a fashion designer. They get together in an unconvincing manner and it doesn’t take much time for shallowness to engulf the entire script.

The couple fights for silly reasons. Their troubled marriage is worsened by insensitive and interfering parents (portrayed stereotypically) of both parties. They finally decide to separate and meet a lawyer (Samyukta Hornad).

Director Shekhar seems to be stuck in the bygone era, when Kannada films judiciously followed a template. It involved characters hailing from different districts just so that the directors could make them speak in dialects specific to those regions. But, the execution is always way off the mark and Love Birds too suffers from the same problem.

Sadhu Kokila as a Mangalruean and Rangayana Raghu as a man from North Karnataka sound artificial but it is Veena Sunder’s excruciatingly over-the-top performance as a Mandya woman trying to be tech savvy that takes the film’s annoyance level to the hilt. The film stinks of jaded formula as the hero-glorification fight scenes pop up out of nowhere.

The humour involving Sadhu Kokila is cringeworthy. For ages, the actor has been ridiculed for his colour, insulted and beaten for his appearance. He is a gifted comedian who is cast in roles that face the brunt of insensitive people.

One practical solution for a couple struggling in a troubled marriage is communication. Love Birds doesn’t show a single meaningful communication between the leads. During their happier times, they are made to sing and dance. When cracks begin to reveal in the relationship, they are seen arguing like there is no tomorrow.

A smarter filmmaker would have written characters who appear real. He or she would have done justice to the genre by offering us solid, intense drama. Love Birds, in turn, is boringly philosophical.

As if it’s a norm, heroines in Kannada cinema play second fiddle to their male counterparts. In Love Birds, the husband is shown more patient, and compromising than the wife. He is the Gaurdian Angel, often being present to save his wife from danger.

Milana Nagaraj and Darling Krishna are perhaps one of the few real-life partners who carry a delightful chemistry on screen. Milana’s controlled performance is a perfect match to Krishna’s lazy elegance. The film was perhaps made to cash in on the couple’s brand. The two were meant to reach new heights post the hit Love Mocktail franchise but with a series of poor choices, their career seems to be already in a downward spiral.