Tej I Love you movie review: Sai Dharam Tej, Anupama Parameswaran starrer is a forgettable film

The least you expect from a director like Karunakaran, who has made a mark with entertaining rom-coms such as Tholiprema, Vasu and Darling, is a film worth a few cheers and decent entertainment value. Unfortunately, his latest film Tej I Love You, with Sai Dharam Tej and Anupama Parameswaran in the lead, doesn’t even feature a single cheer-worthy moment and despite borrowing its plot from several Telugu rom-coms over the last two decades, still ends up as a lousy, boring and forgettable experience. [caption id=“attachment_4682421” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A still from Tej I Love You.[/caption] Sai Dharam Tej plays Tej, and for the nth time, we’re introduced to a good-hearted hero (this is established by one good deed very early on in the film) who is aimless and jobless but still somehow manages to make the really beautiful, smart and well educated heroine (Anupama) fall head over heels for him. If only these directors who write such roles told us the secret and how to woo like Tej, we’d all be lucky enough to have partners who are usually way out of our league. The plot revolves around a girl who comes to India to fulfill her mother’s last wish. In the process, she falls in love with Tej, the doting member of a family that’s as big as Indian cricket team. Wonder what’s Telugu filmmakers’ obsession with such big families? What’s the need to cast over a dozen character artists and not give them the scope to shine even in a single screen? The only time these actors can be happy to be part of the project is when they’re brought together for a song, written just for the sake of establishing the fact that it’s a happy family. There’s one such song in Tej I Love You and we witness the entire family goofing around and playing cricket, as the camera pans across their faces, capturing them in their best moments. After an almost tiresome first half where pretty much nothing happens other than Anupama Parameswaran showing us that she can pull off snazzy outfits with élan, a story twist, around the interval block earns our attention. Karunakaran uses coincidence as his trope to tell his story. What follows is a series of bizarre coincidences, written so conveniently, which makes the twist as predictable as one can imagine. The writing is so lazy that one wonders if Karunakaran had any interest whatsoever in making this film. The hero and his friends are part of a band and there are scenes where they’re shown playing instruments like guitar and piano, which they have no clue about. Anupama Parameswaran is the film’s saving grace to an extent, but even her role turns annoying after a point. She’s someone who looks best in her natural self and is best remembered for Premam, but her effort to looks extremely attractive with heavy make-up makes her fall in the category of those actresses who are best described as eye-candy. Tej I Love You is a dreadful film from an out-of-form director and an actor struggling with his form. You forget the film even before you exit the theatre.