Movie: Skylab
Judgement: 2/5
Banner: Byte Pictures, Nithya Menen Company
Cast: Nithya Menen, Satyadev, Rahul Ramakrishna, Tanikella Bharani, Tulasi and others
Music: Prashanth R Viharic
camera operator: Aditya Javvadic
Editor: Ravi Teja Girijala
Co-producer: Nithya Menen
Producer: Prithvi Pinnamaraju
Writer-director: Vishvak Kanderao
Date of publication: December 4, 2024
The trailer for ‘Skylab’ piqued our interest. It had a positive impact because the concept looked exciting. Nithya Menen becoming a producer for this film is another reason that caused a lot of buzz.
Let’s find out its pros and cons.
Story:
The story is set in a village in Banda Lingampally in Karimnagar district in 1979 and tells of incidents before the fall of the US space station ‘Skylab’.
The village has several exciting characters, but it focuses on three people: a wannabe writer and journalist Gauri (Nithya Menen), a doctor named Anand (Satya Dev), and a younger Ramarao (Rahul Ramakrishna) struggling to pay off the debts of their family.
While the news was that the ‘Skylab’ might fall on their village, the residents are doing everything.
Performances by artists:
Nithya Menen as the daughter of a wealthy landlord and wannabe writer captures the moments when she appears on screen. While her role is cliché, her on-screen presence does the magic.
Satyadev doesn’t have much to do in the whole scheme of things. He plays a greedy doctor. Rahul Ramakrishna has provided some comic relief.
Tanikella Bharani and Tulasi are ok.
Technical excellence:
The music of Prashanth Vihari is in sync with the theme. The cinematography and production design are neat. The editor must have slept on the table himself. The film needs a lot (yes, a lot) of trimming. Bad verdict of editing!
Highlights:
Nothing
Disadvantage:
Boring first half
Dead slow narration
Expensive drama with a wafer-thin plot
Analysis
“Skylab” is based on some real-life incidents. Vintage cars say people panicked for days as news spread that the space station could fall all over India. The premise is certainly interesting. But that alone is not enough to hold the viewer’s attention.
The writer-director takes the entire first half to establish various characters in the film besides introducing the three lead roles played by Nithya Menen, Satya Dev and Rahul Ramakrishna. Some of the comedic dialogue certainly worked, but devoting the entire first half to these characters and their issues has made the film a dull affair. In addition, the tempo is slower than the snail tempo.
Nithya Menen’s track by a novice writer is cliché. She thinks she is a good writer and a good journalist, but the editor thinks she has terrible writing skills. To establish this, the drama takes more than half an hour. The writer should have been inspired by Sri Lakshmi’s old comedy scenes and how to write comedy in such cases. Do you remember the movie Chantabbayi where Sri Lakshmi played such a writer role?
The trail of Satyadev coming to this village to earn Rs 5000 to get his medical practice permit goes on and on. There are other minor characters and their arcs. Amidst all this chaos, only the scenes of Rahul Ramakrishna bring some laughter.
The premise has room to tell it hilariously. But the director didn’t capitalize it. The idea of his comedy does not reflect modern times.
All in all, despite having an interesting concept, the screenplay and exhausting running time and boring sequences killed it. Watching it in the cinema will exhaust the audience from this dead-slow drama.
Bottom line: Falling on the heads of the public
