Arjun Reddy is a 2017 Indian Telugu-language romantic drama film written and directed by Sandeep Vanga, and produced by his brother Pranay Reddy Vanga's company Bhadrakali Pictures. It stars Vijay Deverakonda and Shalini Pandey in the lead roles, and Rahul Ramakrishna, Jia Sharma, Sanjay Swaroop, Gopinath Bhat, Kamal Kamaraju and Kanchana in supporting roles. The film tells the story of Arjun Reddy Deshmukh (Deverakonda), a high-functioning alcoholic surgeon who has anger management problems. Arjun is on a self-destructive path after the marriage of his girlfriend Preethi Shetty (Pandey); the film focuses on his downfall and subsequent resurgence.
Arjun Reddy was partially inspired by Vanga's life as a physiotherapy student. He worked on the script for two years and it took four to five years for the film to materialise. Principal photography commenced on 20 June 2016 at Hyderabad and took 86 working days to complete. Other filming locations include Mangalore, Dehradun and New Delhi, filming also took place in Italy. Radhan and Harshvardhan Rameshwar composed the soundtrack and score, respectively. Raj Thota was director of photography and Shashank Mali edited the film.
The film was made on a budget of ₹40–51.5 million; it was released worldwide on 25 August 2017 after receiving an 'A' (adult) certification from India's Central Board of Film Certification. Post-release, the film received positive reviews for its direction, writing, cinematography and the cast's performances—especially that of Deverakonda. It drew criticism for allegedly promoting substance abuse among young people and for its romantic scenes. The film was a box office success, grossing ₹510 million globally, with a distributor share of ₹260 million. It went on to receive six nominations at the 65th Filmfare Awards South, including Best Telugu Film, Best Telugu Director for Sandeep Vanga and Best Telugu Actor for Deverakonda, the film's only win at the ceremony. In 2019, it was remade in Hindi as Kabir Singh and in Tamil as Adithya Varma.
Plot
Arjun Reddy Deshmukh is a house surgeon at St. Mary's Medical College in Mangalore, India. Despite being a brilliant student, he has severe anger management problems that earn the wrath of the dean of the college. Arjun's aggressive nature also earns him a reputation among his juniors as a college bully. After having a brawl alongside his friend Kamal against members of the opposing team during an inter-college football match, the dean asks Arjun to either apologise or leave the college. Arjun initially chooses to leave the college, but stays back after meeting first-year student Preethi Shetty.
Arjun and his friend Shiva enter a third-year classroom and announce that Arjun is in love with Preethi and asserts that she is exclusive to him. Initially afraid, Preethi starts adjusting herself to Arjun's overbearing attitude. She eventually reciprocates his feelings and they develop an intimate relationship. Arjun graduates with an MBBS degree and leaves for Mussoorie to pursue a Master's degree in Orthopedic surgery. Over the course of three years, Arjun's and Preethi's relationship becomes stronger. Months later, Arjun visits Preethi's house, where her father sees them kissing and throws Arjun out.
Preethi's father opposes her and Arjun's relationship due to Arjun's brash behaviour and also because they belong to different castes. Arjun demands that Preethi must make a decision within six hours otherwise he will end their relationship. Following this incident, Preethi's parents seize her phone, making her unable to contact Arjun. By the time she manages to visit Arjun's house, he is drunk, injects morphine into himself, and becomes unconscious for two days. Preethi is then forcibly married to someone from her caste. Arjun learns about the marriage from Shiva and goes to her house in protest. He is assaulted and gets arrested for making a scene. Arjun's father ostracises him from the family home for damaging his reputation.
With Shiva's help, Arjun finds a rented apartment and joins a private hospital as a surgeon. To cope with his emotions, he starts taking drugs, attempts one-night stands, buys a pet dog and names it after Preethi and drinks alcohol; all of which are unsuccessful. Within months, he becomes a successful surgeon and a high-functioning alcoholic who is feared by the hospital's staff members, one of the reasons being his high surgery count. Arjun's self-destructing behaviour and refusal to move on worries Shiva and Kamal. He persuades one of his patients, Jia Sharma, a leading film star, to have a no-strings relationship with him, which he ends when she falls in love with him.
On a day off, Arjun unwillingly agrees to perform a life-saving surgery and collapses with dehydration. The hospital staff examine his blood samples, which show traces of alcohol and cocaine. The hospital chief files a case against Arjun, who accepts the truth on the grounds of violating his professional ethics during an in-house court hearing, despite Shiva making arrangements to bail him out. Arjun's medical license is cancelled for five years and he is evicted from the flat. The next morning, Shiva manages to reach Arjun to convey his grandmother's death; he meets his father, and they reconcile. Arjun gives up his self-destructive habits soon after.
While leaving for a vacation, Arjun sees a pregnant Preethi sitting in a park. Convinced that she is unhappy with her marriage, Arjun meets her after returning from his vacation. Preethi reveals that she left her husband days after their marriage and continued to work in a clinic. She tells Arjun that he is the child's father, and they reunite. The pair marries, and Preethi's father apologises for misunderstanding their love for each other.
Cast
Vijay Deverakonda as Arjun Reddy Deshmukh
Shalini Pandey as Preethi Shetty
Rahul Ramakrishna as Shiva
Jia Sharma as Jia Sharma
Sanjay Swaroop as Dhanunjay Reddy Deshmukh, Arjun's father
Kamal Kamaraju as Gautham Reddy Deshmukh, Arjun's brother
Kanchana as Arjun's grandmother
Gopinath Bhat as Devdas Shetty, Preethi's father
Kalyan Subrahmanyam as Kamal
Amit Sharma as Amit
Aditi Myakal as Vidya
Anisha Alla as Keerthi
Sravya Mrudula as Shruthi, Preethi's friend
Bhushan Kalyan as Dean of St. Mary's college
Priyadarshi Pulikonda as Vipul (cameo appearance)
Production
Development
Love stories are generally plot-driven, here it is driven by the character Arjun Reddy. It is a powerful name. During college years, you get to hear seniors talk about a legendary character and that name has a recall value. These days our Telugu film titles are lengthy and are from lyrics. I didn't want that. Arjun Reddy was thought to be a faction film. I am juxtaposing that connotation with a love story.
—Vanga on the film's title, in an interview with The Hindu in September 2016.[5]
After discontinuing his studies as a physiotherapist, Sandeep Vanga worked in the 2010 Telugu film Kedi as an assistant director.[1][6] He worked on the script of Arjun Reddy for two years and for four to five years approached producers who were not willing to finance the project until Vanga's brother Pranay Reddy agreed to do so.[1] Pranay and Vanga's father invested in the film equally. The project was made under the production banner of Bhadrakali Pictures.[6][7]
Arjun Reddy was partially inspired from Vanga's life as a physiotherapy student: "It is not my story but there are a lot of references from my life [...] Some of my medical college friends saw the film and said that Arjun reminds them of me."[1] After working on a scene, he used to wait for a week as he believed that for a film with twists and turns, the narrative would have a chance to jump, thereby giving scope for cinematic liberties. For the same, whenever the idea for a plot twist came to him, Vanga used to work on it for three to four weeks.[6]
In a September 2017 interview with Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of The Hindu, Vanga said he believed that Telugu cinema uses dialects spoken in Guntur and Vijayawada. Since he was unaware of the way of speaking in both the places, he wrote the dialogue in a Hyderabad Telangana accent.[3] He made use of words that were rarely spoken in colloquial Telugu like yaralu (sister in law) to make Arjun look "real and rooted".[8] Some of the dialogue was written in Tulu.[9] With a dark mood prevailing for 100 minutes, Vanga wanted a happy ending for the film, with two or three options for the climax. He said he "didn't have the heart" to end the narrative on a sad note, considering the darkness Arjun was subjected to.[1] The initial edit was 220 minutes long; this was reduced to 186 minutes.[1]
Cast and crew
Vanga initially approached Sharwanand to play the film's lead role. Sharwanand was at first apprehensive of Vanga handling the responsibilities of directing and producing the project but after reading the script, he changed his mind. He sent the script to many producers, who considered the project too risky to fund.[6][10] After Sharwanand left the project, Vanga signed Vijay Deverakonda to play Arjun Reddy. Deverakonda's breakthrough film Pelli Choopulu (2016) had not yet been released, and many were against Vanga for casting him, citing it a risky move for a home production.[11] In an interview with Indo-Asian News Service, Devarakonda called the portrayal of Arjun Reddy exhausting, noting that, "I had to be constantly probing into the darkest areas of my consciousness, digging out feelings and tapping into emotions I had never touched in myself".[12] He did not have any cinematic references but watched films like The Godfather (1972), Scarface (1983) and Goodfellas (1990) to remain in an alpha male zone.[8]
Arjun and Preethi had an age difference of four years, which Vanga wanted to showcase effectively. He chose Shalini Pandey to play Preethi; she was pursuing a career in theatre in Jabalpur.[6] Pandey's father was apprehensive of her signing a film contract; the shoot delayed by five months. Pandey was firm in her decision, which strained her relationship with her father.[13] Vanga wanted her to dub for her role, to which she agreed because it would help her own the character completely.[14] Vanga conducted an eight-day acting workshop with Deverakonda and Pandey.[5] Kanchana was cast as Arjun's grandmother in November 2016; Arjun Reddy marked her comeback to Telugu cinema after Shri Datta Darshanam (1985). The producers persuaded her to join the project after a long series of discussions.[15]
Rahul Ramakrishna, who worked as a lyricist for Pelli Choopulu, was cast as Arjun's friend Shiva. Ramakrishna's career as a journalist helped him understand several dialects, which in turn had a positive effect on his performance.[16] He called Shiva's friendship with Arjun "loyal and unconditional", which gives them the liberty to deride each other at times.[17] Amit Sharma was chosen after a three-hour audition; Vanga felt he "had the apt attitude and arrogance" for the role of Amit, Arjun's nemesis.[18] Bhushan Kalyan played the role of the college's dean.[19] Tulu actor Gopinath Bhat was cast as Preethi's father.[9] Sanjay Swaroop, Kamal Kamaraju, Jia Sharma and Priyadarshi Pulikonda were cast in other important roles.[20]
Nagesh Banell was initially the film's director of photography.[21] He was replaced by Raj Thota later, who worked for 85% of the film.[6] Deverakonda recommended him; he did the clash work for Pelli Choopulu whose cinematography was handled by Banell.[b][22][23] Vanga worked on the film's sound design and worked with Sachin Hariharan of Sync Cinema.[6] Harshavardhan Rameshwar composed the background score.[24] Shashank Mali edited the film.[25]
Filming
The film's principal photography commenced at Hyderabad on 20 June 2016.[26] Kanchana joined the film's sets on 30 November 2016.[15] The protagonists' college life portions were filmed at the three heritage buildings of the University college of Hampankatta, Mangalore.[27] Other filming locations included Dehradun and Delhi in India and parts of Italy.[7] According to Deverakonda, Vanga wanted to set the film in a coastal city and chose Mangalore—mirroring his student life in Dharwad—and stayed there for ten days to finalise the locations.[28] In an interview with Idlebrain.com, Vanga said, "When you write a script, you think about a particular location. But, it scared me when we got worst of locations for some of the scenes. But it didn't matter because our attention would be on characters. I realised that when content is clear, locations doesn't matter most of the times."[6]
The principal photography was completed in 86 working days,[3] and was made on a budget of ₹40–51.5 million.[a] Vanga preferred long, uninterrupted takes; the pre-Intermission sequence was seven minutes long. According to Deverakonda, if filmed in conventional style, Vanga would have finished the film in 200 working days.[24] For a few scenes, Thota used a hand-held camera weighing 25 kilograms (55 lb), which adversely affected his hands.[22] The classroom fight scene featuring Deverakonda, Pandey and Sharma was filmed in a single take; Sharma wanted Deverakonda to actually hit him to make the scene look natural. He said their experience in theatre helped their performances.[18] The crew wanted to film the intermission scene, in which Arjun urinates in his pants, authentically but a delay in the shoot led to the insertion of a medical hosepipe in Deverakonda's trousers
Arjun Reddy was partially inspired by Vanga's life as a physiotherapy student. He worked on the script for two years and it took four to five years for the film to materialise. Principal photography commenced on 20 June 2016 at Hyderabad and took 86 working days to complete. Other filming locations include Mangalore, Dehradun and New Delhi, filming also took place in Italy. Radhan and Harshvardhan Rameshwar composed the soundtrack and score, respectively. Raj Thota was director of photography and Shashank Mali edited the film.
The film was made on a budget of ₹40–51.5 million; it was released worldwide on 25 August 2017 after receiving an 'A' (adult) certification from India's Central Board of Film Certification. Post-release, the film received positive reviews for its direction, writing, cinematography and the cast's performances—especially that of Deverakonda. It drew criticism for allegedly promoting substance abuse among young people and for its romantic scenes. The film was a box office success, grossing ₹510 million globally, with a distributor share of ₹260 million. It went on to receive six nominations at the 65th Filmfare Awards South, including Best Telugu Film, Best Telugu Director for Sandeep Vanga and Best Telugu Actor for Deverakonda, the film's only win at the ceremony. In 2019, it was remade in Hindi as Kabir Singh and in Tamil as Adithya Varma.
Plot
Arjun Reddy Deshmukh is a house surgeon at St. Mary's Medical College in Mangalore, India. Despite being a brilliant student, he has severe anger management problems that earn the wrath of the dean of the college. Arjun's aggressive nature also earns him a reputation among his juniors as a college bully. After having a brawl alongside his friend Kamal against members of the opposing team during an inter-college football match, the dean asks Arjun to either apologise or leave the college. Arjun initially chooses to leave the college, but stays back after meeting first-year student Preethi Shetty.
Arjun and his friend Shiva enter a third-year classroom and announce that Arjun is in love with Preethi and asserts that she is exclusive to him. Initially afraid, Preethi starts adjusting herself to Arjun's overbearing attitude. She eventually reciprocates his feelings and they develop an intimate relationship. Arjun graduates with an MBBS degree and leaves for Mussoorie to pursue a Master's degree in Orthopedic surgery. Over the course of three years, Arjun's and Preethi's relationship becomes stronger. Months later, Arjun visits Preethi's house, where her father sees them kissing and throws Arjun out.
Preethi's father opposes her and Arjun's relationship due to Arjun's brash behaviour and also because they belong to different castes. Arjun demands that Preethi must make a decision within six hours otherwise he will end their relationship. Following this incident, Preethi's parents seize her phone, making her unable to contact Arjun. By the time she manages to visit Arjun's house, he is drunk, injects morphine into himself, and becomes unconscious for two days. Preethi is then forcibly married to someone from her caste. Arjun learns about the marriage from Shiva and goes to her house in protest. He is assaulted and gets arrested for making a scene. Arjun's father ostracises him from the family home for damaging his reputation.
With Shiva's help, Arjun finds a rented apartment and joins a private hospital as a surgeon. To cope with his emotions, he starts taking drugs, attempts one-night stands, buys a pet dog and names it after Preethi and drinks alcohol; all of which are unsuccessful. Within months, he becomes a successful surgeon and a high-functioning alcoholic who is feared by the hospital's staff members, one of the reasons being his high surgery count. Arjun's self-destructing behaviour and refusal to move on worries Shiva and Kamal. He persuades one of his patients, Jia Sharma, a leading film star, to have a no-strings relationship with him, which he ends when she falls in love with him.
On a day off, Arjun unwillingly agrees to perform a life-saving surgery and collapses with dehydration. The hospital staff examine his blood samples, which show traces of alcohol and cocaine. The hospital chief files a case against Arjun, who accepts the truth on the grounds of violating his professional ethics during an in-house court hearing, despite Shiva making arrangements to bail him out. Arjun's medical license is cancelled for five years and he is evicted from the flat. The next morning, Shiva manages to reach Arjun to convey his grandmother's death; he meets his father, and they reconcile. Arjun gives up his self-destructive habits soon after.
While leaving for a vacation, Arjun sees a pregnant Preethi sitting in a park. Convinced that she is unhappy with her marriage, Arjun meets her after returning from his vacation. Preethi reveals that she left her husband days after their marriage and continued to work in a clinic. She tells Arjun that he is the child's father, and they reunite. The pair marries, and Preethi's father apologises for misunderstanding their love for each other.
Cast
Vijay Deverakonda as Arjun Reddy Deshmukh
Shalini Pandey as Preethi Shetty
Rahul Ramakrishna as Shiva
Jia Sharma as Jia Sharma
Sanjay Swaroop as Dhanunjay Reddy Deshmukh, Arjun's father
Kamal Kamaraju as Gautham Reddy Deshmukh, Arjun's brother
Kanchana as Arjun's grandmother
Gopinath Bhat as Devdas Shetty, Preethi's father
Kalyan Subrahmanyam as Kamal
Amit Sharma as Amit
Aditi Myakal as Vidya
Anisha Alla as Keerthi
Sravya Mrudula as Shruthi, Preethi's friend
Bhushan Kalyan as Dean of St. Mary's college
Priyadarshi Pulikonda as Vipul (cameo appearance)
Production
Development
Love stories are generally plot-driven, here it is driven by the character Arjun Reddy. It is a powerful name. During college years, you get to hear seniors talk about a legendary character and that name has a recall value. These days our Telugu film titles are lengthy and are from lyrics. I didn't want that. Arjun Reddy was thought to be a faction film. I am juxtaposing that connotation with a love story.
—Vanga on the film's title, in an interview with The Hindu in September 2016.[5]
After discontinuing his studies as a physiotherapist, Sandeep Vanga worked in the 2010 Telugu film Kedi as an assistant director.[1][6] He worked on the script of Arjun Reddy for two years and for four to five years approached producers who were not willing to finance the project until Vanga's brother Pranay Reddy agreed to do so.[1] Pranay and Vanga's father invested in the film equally. The project was made under the production banner of Bhadrakali Pictures.[6][7]
Arjun Reddy was partially inspired from Vanga's life as a physiotherapy student: "It is not my story but there are a lot of references from my life [...] Some of my medical college friends saw the film and said that Arjun reminds them of me."[1] After working on a scene, he used to wait for a week as he believed that for a film with twists and turns, the narrative would have a chance to jump, thereby giving scope for cinematic liberties. For the same, whenever the idea for a plot twist came to him, Vanga used to work on it for three to four weeks.[6]
In a September 2017 interview with Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of The Hindu, Vanga said he believed that Telugu cinema uses dialects spoken in Guntur and Vijayawada. Since he was unaware of the way of speaking in both the places, he wrote the dialogue in a Hyderabad Telangana accent.[3] He made use of words that were rarely spoken in colloquial Telugu like yaralu (sister in law) to make Arjun look "real and rooted".[8] Some of the dialogue was written in Tulu.[9] With a dark mood prevailing for 100 minutes, Vanga wanted a happy ending for the film, with two or three options for the climax. He said he "didn't have the heart" to end the narrative on a sad note, considering the darkness Arjun was subjected to.[1] The initial edit was 220 minutes long; this was reduced to 186 minutes.[1]
Cast and crew
Vanga initially approached Sharwanand to play the film's lead role. Sharwanand was at first apprehensive of Vanga handling the responsibilities of directing and producing the project but after reading the script, he changed his mind. He sent the script to many producers, who considered the project too risky to fund.[6][10] After Sharwanand left the project, Vanga signed Vijay Deverakonda to play Arjun Reddy. Deverakonda's breakthrough film Pelli Choopulu (2016) had not yet been released, and many were against Vanga for casting him, citing it a risky move for a home production.[11] In an interview with Indo-Asian News Service, Devarakonda called the portrayal of Arjun Reddy exhausting, noting that, "I had to be constantly probing into the darkest areas of my consciousness, digging out feelings and tapping into emotions I had never touched in myself".[12] He did not have any cinematic references but watched films like The Godfather (1972), Scarface (1983) and Goodfellas (1990) to remain in an alpha male zone.[8]
Arjun and Preethi had an age difference of four years, which Vanga wanted to showcase effectively. He chose Shalini Pandey to play Preethi; she was pursuing a career in theatre in Jabalpur.[6] Pandey's father was apprehensive of her signing a film contract; the shoot delayed by five months. Pandey was firm in her decision, which strained her relationship with her father.[13] Vanga wanted her to dub for her role, to which she agreed because it would help her own the character completely.[14] Vanga conducted an eight-day acting workshop with Deverakonda and Pandey.[5] Kanchana was cast as Arjun's grandmother in November 2016; Arjun Reddy marked her comeback to Telugu cinema after Shri Datta Darshanam (1985). The producers persuaded her to join the project after a long series of discussions.[15]
Rahul Ramakrishna, who worked as a lyricist for Pelli Choopulu, was cast as Arjun's friend Shiva. Ramakrishna's career as a journalist helped him understand several dialects, which in turn had a positive effect on his performance.[16] He called Shiva's friendship with Arjun "loyal and unconditional", which gives them the liberty to deride each other at times.[17] Amit Sharma was chosen after a three-hour audition; Vanga felt he "had the apt attitude and arrogance" for the role of Amit, Arjun's nemesis.[18] Bhushan Kalyan played the role of the college's dean.[19] Tulu actor Gopinath Bhat was cast as Preethi's father.[9] Sanjay Swaroop, Kamal Kamaraju, Jia Sharma and Priyadarshi Pulikonda were cast in other important roles.[20]
Nagesh Banell was initially the film's director of photography.[21] He was replaced by Raj Thota later, who worked for 85% of the film.[6] Deverakonda recommended him; he did the clash work for Pelli Choopulu whose cinematography was handled by Banell.[b][22][23] Vanga worked on the film's sound design and worked with Sachin Hariharan of Sync Cinema.[6] Harshavardhan Rameshwar composed the background score.[24] Shashank Mali edited the film.[25]
Filming
The film's principal photography commenced at Hyderabad on 20 June 2016.[26] Kanchana joined the film's sets on 30 November 2016.[15] The protagonists' college life portions were filmed at the three heritage buildings of the University college of Hampankatta, Mangalore.[27] Other filming locations included Dehradun and Delhi in India and parts of Italy.[7] According to Deverakonda, Vanga wanted to set the film in a coastal city and chose Mangalore—mirroring his student life in Dharwad—and stayed there for ten days to finalise the locations.[28] In an interview with Idlebrain.com, Vanga said, "When you write a script, you think about a particular location. But, it scared me when we got worst of locations for some of the scenes. But it didn't matter because our attention would be on characters. I realised that when content is clear, locations doesn't matter most of the times."[6]
The principal photography was completed in 86 working days,[3] and was made on a budget of ₹40–51.5 million.[a] Vanga preferred long, uninterrupted takes; the pre-Intermission sequence was seven minutes long. According to Deverakonda, if filmed in conventional style, Vanga would have finished the film in 200 working days.[24] For a few scenes, Thota used a hand-held camera weighing 25 kilograms (55 lb), which adversely affected his hands.[22] The classroom fight scene featuring Deverakonda, Pandey and Sharma was filmed in a single take; Sharma wanted Deverakonda to actually hit him to make the scene look natural. He said their experience in theatre helped their performances.[18] The crew wanted to film the intermission scene, in which Arjun urinates in his pants, authentically but a delay in the shoot led to the insertion of a medical hosepipe in Deverakonda's trousers
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