‘Modern Love – Hyderabad’ Review: Heartfelt Urban New-Age Stories With A Nostalgic Old-World Charm

Director

Nagesh Kukunoor, Venkatesh Maha, Uday Gurrala, Devika Bahudhanam

Cast

Aadhi Pinisetty, Nithya Menen, Ritu Varma, Suhasini Maniratnam, Revathi, Naresh, Malvika Nair, Abijeet Duddala, Naresh Agastya, Komalee Prasad, Ulka Gupta, Rag Mayur, Divya Vani

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What’s The Story

‘Modern Love: Hyderabad’ is a six-part anthology revolving around new-age love stories based on characters from the city of Hyderabad. The anthology is a spin-off from the original Amazon Original ‘Modern Love’ which is set in New York and depicts similar new age love stories from the city of New York.

What’s Good

The Story Is The King

The writing of the stories by Nagesh Kukunoor, Shashi Sudigala, and Bahaish Kapoor in all six episodes is pretty much the best part of this anthology. Whether it’s the estranged mother-daughter forced to stay together due to the pandemic lockdown or it’s the overly protective father who somewhat creepily spies on and stalks his daughter when she is out on dates – all the stories are top-notch.

A special mention to the way the directors Nagesh Kukunoor, Venkatesh Maha, Uday Gurrala, and Devika Bahudhanam have managed to showcase a lot of female solidarity. The way they have used a few male bonding tropes to reflect the changing mindset of today’s society towards women is fantastic. Whether it is a female protagonist turning to her girlfriends to discuss the issues in their lives to even chugging down a drink together and sharing their troubles, these women have been shown very seamlessly as strong and independent ladies who have each other’s backs at all time.

‘Modern Love: Hyderabad’ manages to do what ‘Modern Love: Mumbai’ missed. The stories in the Mumbai edition were really good, but the essence of Mumbai seemed missing in pretty much all of them. However, in the Hyderabad spin-off, they have managed to capture the old-world charm of the city and also kept intact the new-age spirit in the relationships and bondings in these love stories.

Among the performances, Nithya Menon, Komalee Prasad, Revathy, and Ritu Varma are the show stealers. The others too may have lesser screen space, but they all have also done great in their respective episodes.

MM Keeravani’s title track needs special applause. It manages to bring forth the essence of the stories quite well.

What’s Bad

Is Hyderabad Not As Modern As Mumbai?

While the stories are well written, there is a lack of diversity in them. One of the good things about ‘Modern Love: Mumbai’ was that it tried to be inclusive of stories of a gay couple, a woman preferring self-love over a marital bond, and a young man-elder woman love story. However, in ‘Modern Love: Hyderabad’ most of the stories are focussing on conventional stories of heterosexual people. Isn’t Hyderabad as modern a city as Mumbai to have some unconventional love stories?

To add to that, ‘Modern Love: Hyderabad’ lacks in its cinematography, done by Sangram Giri, Aditya Javvadi, and Saiprakash Ummadisingu’. None of the short films had too great a cinematography. Most of them dwelled in real-life locations from different parts of Hyderabad or nearby areas. In an anthology where the city needs to be a prime character in the storyline, a bit more detailing in the cinematography could have brought the essence of the city even better.

Also, some of the stories could have been cut short by 5-10 minutes. A couple of them were, sort of, dragging a bit in the middle, and the editing in these could have been a bit crisper. The editing by A. Sreekar Prasad, Ravi Teja Girijala, and Harishankar Tamminana could have played it a bit smart here by trying to showcase the old-world charm of Hyderabad more and cut short some of the un-important plot points.

Verdict

‘Modern Love: Hyderabad’ revels in what ‘Modern Love: Mumbai’ missed – bringing in the essence of the city. However, ‘Modern Love: Hyderabad' isn’t as diverse in its relationships as ‘Modern Love: Mumbai’. Also, soon enough audiences shall get to see 'Modern Love: Chennai'. Having said that, ‘Modern Love: Hyderabad’ is indeed a Breezy Weekend Watch. I am going with 3.5 stars.