Thella Kaagitham, directed by Ramesh Bandreddi, tells the story of two teenagers, Ramu and Asha, in a small town. The film shows how their innocent romance turns into a crisis due to a lack of guidance. While the first half feels light, the later parts show the heavy price they pay.
Thella Kaagitham — a blank piece of paper — is a fitting title for a story dealing with two impressionable adolescents. The success of films like Court and Little Hearts has thrown the ball open for filmmakers to dabble with tender love, bringing a much-needed innocence to storytelling in an industry caught between testosterone-heavy actioners, cushy romances and far-fetched comedies.
Intermediate students Ramu (Harsh Roshan) and Asha (Nakshatra) are 16, neither children nor adults, curiously opening up to a world full of infinite possibilities. It is a sleepy small town in late-2000s Andhra Pradesh, where landlines are commonplace, and internet penetration is minimal. Their parents have tall dreams and lead modest lives, making small sacrifices to fund their education and putting their problems aside.
A simple exchange of similar lunch boxes at school facilitates their romantic connection. As the friendship blossoms into romance, new confusions emerge. Caught between handling a crisis themselves and the fear of informing their elders, Ramu and Asha take drastic decisions that alter the course of their destinies. Based on true incidents, the film is a cautionary take on the volatility of teenage love.
Thella Kaagitham (Telugu)
Director: Ramesh Bandreddi
Cast: Harsh Roshan, Nakshatra
Runtime: 163 minutes
Storyline: A teenage romance goes awry with an unexpected crisis
The Ramesh Bandreddi directorial is a breeze as it portrays Ramu and Asha’s first brush with love — bonding over their meals, newfound attraction, sweet little nothings and the frolic with their gang in a sleepy village. At the same time, what the story also lays bare is the absence of an approachable adult figure in their lives.
Ramu loses his parents early and is raised by a brother and sister-in-law who treat him as their own. Asha has an authoritative father, and the room for any freewheeling conversation is absent. There’s no outlet to discuss issues of early adulthood, and awareness around sex education and reproductive health is minimal — and the teens pay a heavy price for it.
After a relatively light-hearted, slice-of-life first hour, the film taps into the psyche of the teens hell-bent on handling a crisis on their own. The narrative succeeds in generating tension while operating within a tight-knit community in a small-town setting. The final stretch takes a more melodramatic turn that feels dated not just in tone but in its moral lens, and nevertheless makes you think.
The director diligently plants enough hints about the course of the story, which shares a few similarities with teen dramas like Kotha Bangaru Lokam, Oka Romantic Crime Katha and Chitram. Thella Kaagitham consistently puts the spotlight on the mistakes of the teenagers and the perils of the outside world, but fails to offer a full-blown critique of the conservative, rigid environment that envelops them.
Some of the subplots in the latter half are particularly problematic, especially in their attempt to highlight the sacrifices that a family makes to raise a child responsibly. Across multiple homes, the rural women are painted as sacrificial, all-tolerating figures, passively responding to harsh decisions taken by men. The absence of any female agency in the story is hard to miss.
Asha’s father keeps monitoring his daughter’s weight every few weeks to ensure she’s eating healthy. The mother has little say in a house dealing with a vulnerable 16-year-old, who clearly deserved a more empathetic influence at home. Ramu also has a pregnant sister-in-law with a husband working in a welding shop, who imposes his decisions on her, and the woman invariably submits after some initial resistance.
As is the case with a lot of parental figures in cinema, authority and rigidity are painted as care. Another significant issue is how the film lets the perpetrators escape scot-free without any consequences while largely focusing on teenage guilt and shame. This could be a reflection of the brutality of the world that Thella Kaagitham is set in, or the world we live in. Yet, you wish the filmmaker had addressed it with more transparency.
Thella Kaagitham tells an important story, but it needed a more contemporary cinematic language to cater to its audience, especially with the ending. While there are undeniable issues with the director’s sensibilities, the screenplay by Nandu Savirigana fares marginally better, with most sequences contributing seamlessly to the larger theme it seeks to address.
Harsh Roshan, after Court, blossoms well as a lead, playing a guilt-ridden youngster in love, though he may need to be cautious with his choices to avoid stereotyping. His counterpart Nakshatra is at ease in front of the camera and emotes well, both in the slice-of-life romance and the high-pitched drama.
Ajay and Sharanya make the most of their limiting yet clearly defined roles. An assured Rajkumar Kasireddy bags a crucial part too. Vijai Bulganin, in his most impressive album after Baby, strikes form with his melodies, and K V Guhan’s earthy cinematography serves as a warm companion to the viewer, offering glimpses of the realities of rural life.