Nikhil Siddhartha and Anupama Parameswaran in Telugu film ’18 Pages’ written by Sukumar
18 pagesWritten by well-known director Sukumar and starring Surya Pratap, Palnati narrates a romance drama with a hint of mystery in which two characters fall in love without meeting. The film later brings together Nikhil Siddharth and Anupama Parameswaran. Kartikeya 2 And puts them in a contemporary yet nostalgic set up.
Siddharth (Nikhil) is a mobile phone addict and an app developer who gets heartbroken very quickly. The hurried and sketchy portrayal of that romance, breakup and subsequent tear-jerking at the Durgam Cheruvu Cable Bridge and almost everywhere else in Hyderabad barely moves us. This is by design. It’s the writer and director’s way of telling us that he hasn’t found true love yet.
Before the actual story begins, we meet characters whose travels and actions may have an impact on the romance that is about to unfold. Siddharth or Siddhu has lost his bond with his parents and his anger stems from how he thinks they have not understood his grandfather’s plight. His anger for his father hits home at one point but does he stop to think whether he has time for his grandfather? not enough.
18 pages
Cast: Nikhil Siddharth, Anupama Parameswaran
Direction: Palnati Surya Pratap
Music: Gopi Sundar
Sidhu’s trusted friend and sounding board is his colleague Baaghi (Sarayu Roy), who seems to be the most insightful character in the film. Sidhu’s personality changes when he finds Nandini’s (Anupama) two-year-old diary. The 18 pages of his diary introduce him to a completely opposite personality. She represents the quintessential, in fact, a simple, innocent young woman who thinks and does good to everyone who comes her way. There are many characters like him in mainstream cinema. To an extent, it is Sukumar’s writing that prevents him from being boring. Anupama, however, is charming in her portrayal and keeps us hooked. Nikhil’s Lagan and Gopi Sundar’s music also works in the film.
Unlike Sidhu, Nandini never uses a mobile phone and believes in human contact. While someone on the train takes a selfie to document the golden sunrise, she believes in living the moment and recording it in her memory without the distraction of a phone. you get the flow. We get a series of events to show how she transforms the lives of those around her. An equal number of sequences show what happens when Sidhu applies some of Nandini’s principles to his own life. The way he completes a project despite missing a meeting because he stopped using Google Maps is unbelievable. The story demands that we shed disbelief and accept the idea of Sidhu and Nandini looking at life with minimal use of technology.
We get a sense of Sidhu’s growing interest in Nandini and his hopeless fall for her through his funny exchanges with Baaghi. The apparent tension in this one-sided romance is beautifully conveyed and we are curious to know what happened to Nandini.
The story turns from a simple romance to a thriller as Sidhu and Baaghi try to find out the truth about Nandini. As they dig deeper, many questions remain unanswered. For example, the back story of his family and the whereabouts of his friends in Hyderabad are shaky. Sidhu’s transformation into a messiah of sorts is also unbelievable. Unless he broke a bank or sold his share of the property, it’s hard to buy the hypothesis that he could do so much through charity.
Nevertheless, the final moments of this love story revive the film.