Raghavendra Stores movie review: Jaggesh stars in a meandering but good-hearted comedy-drama

3/5

Story:

40-year-old Hayavadana is a man on a singular mission and that is to find a companion. With his youthful days well behind him, he is no longer considered marriage material and the fact that he waits tables at his own father's restaurant (Raghavendra Stores, since 1972) doesn't help his chances either. His relentless pursuits, though, finally lead him to Vaijayanthi (Shwetha Srivatsav), a classical singer, and the two merrily get married with the glorious hope of walking into the sunset together. But, as luck would have it, Hayavadana and Vaijayanthi are made to tackle one amusing challenge after the other until their marriage is put to the ultimate test - can they see this all through without enduring much damage?

Review:

When you have set out to watch a film starring Jaggesh, there are two things that you expect the most - a laugh riot and a load of double innuendos. And when the Navarasa Nayaka is playing an ageing virgin in the same film, that load is bound to get heavier. The 60-year-old actor's quirks and antics are as important a part of the experience as the story and the narrative are, and when the two aspects are 'married' well, the result is a heartwarming dish. 

Raghavendra Stores, the latest addition to this menu, is one such endeavour that includes every single item on the checklist and promises to fill our hearts with humour, sentiments and also a poignant message to top it all off. It has Jaggesh's quintessence in almost every single frame, it's got an offbeat story to ride on and it's also got a sweet little message to communicate, which is really the heart of it all. The question, however, is do each of the elements come together in a seamless manner? The answer is both a yes and a no but it'd be a challenging task to explain the dichotomy here.

Hayavadana has dedicated almost all of his adult life to his father's iconic restaurant Raghavendra Stores (since 1972), where he merrily grinds idli-dosa batter, waits tables and also handles a small crew of cooks. The team is a tight bunch because they always travel together in their funky mini matador van, hopping from one catering gig to another and guzzling down booze when they aren't. But the interesting catch is that they most often find themselves at weddings, much to the annoyance of Hayavadana, the eternal bachelor who couldn't wait anymore to tie the three knots. The main charm of the film lies in these initial sequences - Hayavadana is desperate to get married and his cook pals cannot help but be worried for him. They devise plans for him, share implausible suggestions, and much of the humour that the film promises stems from these bits in the first half. 

I was quite impressed with the way Shwetha Srivatsav's character Vaijayanthi is handled in the film. On the surface, she is the demure 'nerd' who has dedicated her life to classical music, but the subtlety in the writing tells us that there's a lot more to her. By all means, she is the polar opposite of Hayavadana but when the film begins to deal with matters of sex and the "consummation of marriage", it doesn't shy away from revealing she longs for the carnal pleasures as much as the man does. Sure, Jaggesh's version of Hayavadana is far more expressive and demanding but Vaijayanthi's shyness is never made silly or one-dimensional. The issue, however, arises when we don't see the depths of this peculiar relationship and we are left wanting to know so much more about Vaijayanthi - this, I suppose, is one of the main shortcomings of Santhosh Ananddram's script. 

I was surprised to see the marriage portions unfold quite early on in the narrative, considering that a majority of it was meant to be about Hayavadana's quest for love. While that surprise did seem effective in the beginning, the writing then began to meander a lot by jumping purposelessly from one plot point to another. At the end of the first half, I wasn't sure whether the film was about Hayavadana wanting to find a life partner or wanting to break his virginity spell, but when the second half began to unravel, it became apparent that it was about neither of the two. 

Santhosh Ananddram, the writer-director then brings in a couple of contrivances that did not completely work for me - one about Hayavadana getting caught in a 'resort politics' situation, in particular, seemed to almost belong to a completely different film. And as a result, one could see the crux of the film, which is best left undisclosed, surfacing quite late in the narrative and that too with very little run time left. One of the main problems of the film is that it never settles on one idea and instead, keeps fluttering back and forth without any rhythm. A whole range of themes and subjects - from political corruption to parenthood and surrogacy - are discussed over the course of two hours but without the required kind of nuance or precision.

Needless to say, the film is heavy on drama and the writing does try to compensate for some of its lacklustreness with that approach. The Jaggesh-Dattanna camaraderie does stand out and some of the best moments of the feature the two; their tongue-in-cheek repartee, which the fans have loved in films like Neer Dose and Thothapuri, is one of the highlights of the film. 

Verdict:

Raghavendra Stores arrives in cinema halls with a lot of promise and one of the main factors is Hombale Films' association with it. The film is enterprising on the surface, thanks to its rich and vibrant theme, but the application somehow lets it down. In what seems like a tale of two starkly contrasting halves, the first half of Raghavendra Stores is light, fresh and intentionally crass whereas the second half is equally disarranged and confusing. As pointed out above, the film would have certainly benefitted from more nuanced and focused writing but if you are a fan of Jaggesh, there are more than enough sequences to keep you entertained and engaged. These portions might seem oddly familiar and rehashed from some of the actor's previous films but they work nevertheless.