Vennela

Vennela
Directed by Deva Katta
Produced by Ravi Vallabhaneni
Sachi Pinagapani
Chalapathi Mannuru
Written by Deva Katta
Starring Raja
Parvati Melton
Sharvanand
Ravi Varma
Music by Mahesh Shankar
Cinematography Raja Rathnam
Distributed by Paramjyothi Films
Release dates
 November 26, 2005
Running time
 133 mins
Language Telugu
Budget 2.9 Crores INR

Vennela (Telugu: వెన్నెల,English: Moonlight) is a 2005 Telugu film written and directed by Deva Katta, starring Raja and Parvati Melton as well as Sharwanand and Ravi Varma.

Audience, setting, and budget

Vennela was well received among the young, urban audiences and south Indian students in USA mostly from Andhra Pradesh, India. 90% of the film was shot in Michigan, United States. The American university setting was shot at Wayne State University main campus in Detroit and Oakland University in Rochester. Only 10% of the film was shot at City College Hyderabad. The film, made on a budget of INR 2.9 crore, grossed INR 5.3 crore at the box office and was declared a hit.

Plot

Pavani (Parvati Melton) is an independent woman who aims to pursue higher studies in the USA. She breaks up with her fiancé, Ritesh (Sharvanand), son of a millionaire and Pavani's classmate.

Ritesh is intelligent and is also the most eligible bachelor in college. Being the son of a wealthy father, Ritesh is irresponsible, unstable, and vulnerable. He draws hostility, jealousy, enmity with his college mates like Sayeed (Ravi Varma), who was also interested in Pavani, albeit secretly. This threatening lifestyle of Ritesh forces Pavani to dump him.

While celebrating her upcoming departure to the USA with her friends, Pavani meets Naveen (Raja). With his friends, Naveen is also celebrating receiving a visa to study in the USA. Incidentally, both get admitted to the same university.

Naveen and his friends go through culture shock and the troubles faced in studying in the US and trying for a part-time job. For example, Naveen and his friends tangle and have mishaps with women, cars and an Indian restaurant owner, Pachadlla Paramanandam (Brahmanandam). Sayeed, also a student of the same university, is aware of Pavani’s strained relationship with Ritesh.

Sayeed tries to mess up with Pavani and Ritesh's life to satisfy his ego and provokes Ritesh by informing him about Pavani's relationship with Naveen. As Naveen and Pavani get closer, Sayeed gets Ritesh to the USA on a student visa to sabotage their relationship. On the other hand, Ritesh's dad tries to woo Pavani with the property that will be inherited by Ritesh upon her marriage to him. But Pavani rejects Ritesh and his dad's offer. Ritesh becomes hostile towards Pavani: he believes he was used and cheated on and that is he was innocent.

Ritesh's dad advises him not to mess with woman like Pavani, who doesn't want anything to do with Ritesh. He is lucky to be born in a wealthy family, get a good education, and could settle down with his dad's inherited property. However, Ritesh ignores his dad's advice.

The rest of the plot depicts situations that deal with Ritesh's agony at being rejected by Pavani and also on realising that he is a victim of Sayeed's scheme when he chances upon morphed images of Pavani. Subsequently Ritesh becomes psychotic. He kills Sayeed at the university campus and attacks Pavani and Naveen by hiding in their car while they return from work. While Ritesh shoots Naveen's neck, the cops arrive with an ambulance and rescue Naveen and Pavani by shooting Ritesh to death.

The film highlights situations which leads victims, like Ritesh, to dig their own graves by getting into bad company.

Cast

See also

References