For once, the hype is warranted. The trailers did a disservice to this flick for sure, since they did not motivate me to watch it, but boy am I glad I did, that too with my dad on father's day.
The fact that this has 3 generations of actors leading the setup is incidental, though it helps, and it is indeed ironic noting the applicability of the lines written for the characters, versus the real- life personas of the celebrity family members portraying them, and its surprising that the overwhelming feeling is something nice, rather than something typically overdone, which this could've devolved into quickly.
Due credit to the writer/helmer for not succumbing to such temptation.
One more point of note - each frame looks prefect. The skill of the cinematographer and the production designer (and the art designer) should be placed on a pedestal for this one, since the look of the movie, even during the period sequences, is almost perfect. It never calls attention to itself, which is a feat by itself.
Considering the loops the tale goes through, another aspect that the helmer needs to be appreciated for is the attention paid to details like individual character quirks. In each iteration, there is a callback to each of those, that act as a refresher to the audience as well, and bring a smile to the lips. Small details like the ones highlighted here are lost, more often than not, and a nitpicking critic dwells on them to no avail. Good news is that this flick tries hard to address each one of those, and is successful more often than not, that I am tempted to overlook those instances in which it fails.
The performances are all way above-average, and befitting a work such as this, and this plays as a perfect swan-song to the dearly departed acting juggernaut of the yesteryear, Akkinneni Nageswar Rao. His latter generation heirs in acting can never quite reach that pinnacle, as evidenced by their body of work, but the goal is quite lofty, so one cannot fault them either, since all of them do serviceable jobs (except for the one in the quite needless cameo).
The music is hummable too, and I'm quite glad to note that the technical aspects highlight themselves subtle in a piece of work that could have gotten know more for the presence of a thespian and his family rather than anything else.
Definitely worth a watch on the big screen, with your family, perhaps even more than once. Tollywood's best this year for sure.
