‘Yevam’ movie review: Interesting plot let down by bland writing

The story of the Telugu film ‘Yevam’ is based on Vikarabad, Telangana. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Some films have a broad premise that promises to step into uncharted territories and tell interesting stories of small towns. YevamDirected by Prakash Dantuluri, is one of them. The director, who shares writing credits with Divya Narayan, explores a crime drama set in Telangana’s Vikarabad district. A serial criminal targets women through false ads that promise dinner dates and long drives with A-list male stars. What makes this story interesting is the investigation conducted by a young female police officer, played by an impressive Chandini Chowdhary, who is eager to prove herself in a patriarchal society. The narrative piques curiosity for a while, even if it is not always interesting. Later, it goes downhill as the writing turns silly, derailing the initial promise.

The opening crime sequence serves as a prologue and hints at the possibility of a psychopath being on the lookout. A little while later, the modus operandi is revealed. Pamphlets are distributed around the women’s college. Naïve teenagers are encouraged to scan a QR code and win a chance to meet actor Prabhas on a dinner date. Many questions arise when a student soon finds herself in an unfavorable situation. Doesn’t she sense something is wrong when she is left in a deserted place? Maybe she has become too star-stuck, I reasoned, and waited for things to unfold.

The film then moves to a police station in Vikarabad, where Soumya (Chandini Chowdary) is a new recruit. Her colleagues include an older, affable constable (Goparaju Ramana) and a grumpy Inspector Abhirami (Bharat Raj). The initial banter reflects Soumya’s personality – a somewhat naïve, friendly, wide-eyed young woman who is eager to learn. Often taunted at home for being unfit for the police force, she yearns to prove them wrong. In a later scene, we understand why she joined the police force and what she wants to do. Though she seems weak in the way she behaves at the crime scene, we also sense her courage.

The first hour progresses on expected lines and sets the stage for the search for a serial criminal as more crimes are revealed. A twist before the interval takes the story in an unexpected direction and a cliffhanging moment. At times, there is also a character study of the people who inhabit the police station. When an officer asks a colleague if he has double-checked that his daughter is happy with the groom chosen, we assume it comes from a place of respecting women’s choices. But then again, not every statement can be judged at its face value.

I wish the writing had introduced such possibilities more readily. The pieces of the puzzle are figured out too quickly, at least from the audience’s perspective, and Saumya’s search for the truth lacks the requisite cleverness. There are also several flaws. For instance, I wondered how Saumya could pretend to be another young woman and offer to meet the culprit – after all, the culprit had contacted the young woman through Facebook, and so she must have seen his photos. This possibility is never mentioned. In a later crucial scene, Saumya doesn’t smell the obvious trap, even though it comes after one of her earlier attempts goes off the rails and she is injured.

In the climax, when he realises that the culprit is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he has no concrete plan of action. The confrontation is silly, to put it mildly. The poor visual effects, the changing identities of the culprit and the desperate attempt to portray the psychology of his personality do not work. In between, the colour red is used to highlight the horror and imminent danger. The music also works as well. However, all this effort goes in vain as the pace of the story slows down.

Chandni and Goparaju Ramana have tried to hold the story together, but it is not enough. Vasishta Simha and Bharath Raj’s acting is in line with their characterizations, but the writing has let them down too. Revealing anything about their characters would be like spoiling the story.

Yevam It could have been a crime drama that celebrates a vulnerable female police officer. But it turns out to be much weaker than its intended purpose.