Movie review 'Ulavacharu Biryani': This biryani is undercooked

Director: Prakash Raj

Rating: **1/5

Like his earlier directorial ventures, Prakash Raj’s third film Ulavacharu Biryani too is a remake – of the Malayalam film Salt and Pepper.

The subject of the film is middle age love and loneliness, with a culinary backdrop. Prakash Raj plays an archaeologist, Kalidas, while Sneha is a dubbing artiste, Gowri. The two become good friends over phone due to a mix up but both are worried about meeting each other because they are worried that that they won’t match up to the other’s expectations.

Prakash thus sends his nephew Tejus, while Sneha sends Samyukta to check the other one out. While Tejus and Samyukta fall in love, differences between Sneha and Prakash Raj crop up. What follows is the main course of the film.

There’s no need to write about Prakash Raj’s performance. He fits the character perfectly as a middle age person. Sneha has done a good job in her comeback film while Tejus and Samyukta too have done very well.

Brahmaji has done a perfect job as always and his role should have been longer.

Prakash Raj has chosen a good subject, which has a great blend of romance, relationship and food. The problem with the film, however, is slow narration and it drags a bit.

While Prakash has shown the middle age romance very well, he hasn’t concentrated enough on the younger couple. The screenplay too is slow and the story is quite predictable.

Ilayaraja’s music is one of the highlights of the film while technically too the film gets brownie points.

It seems that while Prakash started Ulavacharu Biryani with all the right ingredients, he forgot to add the salt, a basic but essential ingredient. As an actor he is superb, but he still needs to prove himself as an able director.

At best, Ulavacharu Biryani is a good “time pass” film. Another plus point is that it runs for only two-hours.