Tuesday Dec 02 2008, Hyderabad

Big is beautiful!

‘Vinayakudu’, based on the love that a fat guy has for a slim, sophisticated girl, is winning hearts all over Andhra Pradesh.
Released last weekend, the Sai Kiran Adavi-directed film has Krishnudu and Sonia in key roles. Though there was not much of pre-release hype, ‘Vinayakudu’ caught the audience’s fancy owing to the novelty element and has managed to get a very god response at the BO.
The distributor ‘Dil’ Raju had decided to play it safe by releasing the film with limited prints. But he has no reason to worry as the film seems to be destined to sail rather smooth at the BO. Moreover for ‘Dil’ Raju, whose production venture ‘Kotha Bangaru Lokam’ has completed 50 days of successful run, the decent opening that ‘Vinayakudu’ has got is an added bonanza.
‘Vinayakudu’ has Krishnudu playing Karthik, a coy and obese guy who comes to Hyderabad seeking a job and then gets one in an ad agency. There he meets and falls for Kalpana (Sonia), who is his colleague. Kalpana however doesn’t take Karthik and his love seriously and even behaves insultingly at times. She soon finds her Mr. Right in Rajiv, the boy chosen by her parents. From here the story takes off.
The simplicity and the novelty of the story plus the emotional content in the film find much appeal with the audience. Krishnudu, who had done a small yet significant role in ‘Happy Days’ has done his part rather convincingly while ‘Happy Days’ fame Sonia is really good as Kalpana.
The film, though not spectacularly mounted, has got a good opening and seems to be on the way to becoming a success, though not a very big one.