'World famous lover' review: Another tale of a psychopath

Film: World famous lover
Cast: Vijay Deverakonda, Rashi Khanna
Director: Kranthi Madhav
Language: Telugu (U/A)
Rating: 2/5

The madness of ‘World Famous Lover’ starts with the loveless live-in relationship of Yamini (Rashi Khanna) and Gautham (Vijay Deverakonda). Gautham is a struggling writer and is oblivious to his partner’s sadness, her sacrifice and her in general. Tired of being ignored, she breaks up with him and tries to move on.

Here is where the tale of madness truly begins, Gautham is unable to let go of her and does not understand why Yamini gave up on him. He starts writing to prove a point and imagines himself as the coal mining union leader Seenayya who is married to Suvarna. Seenayya is a brash ‘hero’ type who is rude to his wife but accommodating and affectionate to Smitha, his boss who he has a crush on. Gautham also writes another hackneyed story of sacrifice set in Paris.

These unnecessarily long stories are interspersed with Yamini and Gautham’s story of falling in love, which are sometimes refreshing, in dreary framework of the rest of the movie. Out of these nested narratives, the only one which has some substance and a character who you can root for (Suvarna played by Aishwarya Rajesh not Seenayya) is that of the union leader.

Everything else in the movie is a covert attempt to cast Gautham as unique, cool, tortured or sensitive. All the movie manages to do, however, is to cast Gautham in the shadow of a psychopath who has little regard for himself, his car, his house, strangers or his lover, a role that Deverakonda plays exceedingly well.

‘World Famous Lover’ tries to absolve Gautham’s problematic behaviour by having him understand all of Yamini’s sacrifice and compromise. He mansplains to a crowd of fans what love really means and the reasons behind his partner’s decisions.

This attempt of subversion comes perhaps a bit too late and you are left wondering when Indian cinema will stop portraying this version of love that drives the ‘hero’ to punch walls and break mirrors.