Romanchakam Review: Telugu Rom-Com Turns Dark

Our hero is the kind of guy who thinks confidence is a personality. Fresh off an engineering degree, he decides the fastest way to prove he can win at anything is to launch a dating app - because apparently building software that connects lonely people is a flex now. Naturally, it flops. Money runs dry. Rent looms. His friends, a reliably chaotic crew, stick around mostly to watch the trainwreck and occasionally cause it.

Then comes the mysterious online connection. What begins as a desperate, slightly pathetic chase for a girl he's never met starts twisting into something else entirely. A strange encounter late in the film drops a hint of something darker, and suddenly the movie isn't about winning a girl anymore. It's about a guy confronting the one person he's spent his whole life avoiding: himself. The title promises a thrill, and the third act finally delivers - just not the kind you were expecting.

Director Venu Gopal Reddy has a real feel for the rhythms of young, broke, overconfident adulthood. The early stretches crackle with the specific energy of friends who have no money but unlimited opinions. Sumanth Prabhas anchors the film with a performance that's easy to hate at first - which is the point - and then slowly earns your sympathy without ever begging for it. That's a tricky needle to thread, and he mostly pulls it off.

Ananthika Sanilkumar brings warmth and a welcome unpredictability to a role that could have been a checklist of rom-com tropes. Upendra Limaye, Venkatesh Kakumanu, and the rest of the supporting cast keep the comedy engine humming, especially in the middle stretch where the failed-startup gags land hardest.

Where Romanchakam stumbles is pacing. At 140 minutes, it takes its sweet time getting to the good stuff, and the tonal gearshift from slapstick to soul-searching is less a smooth turn than a hard yank of the handbrake. You can feel the movie deciding to become serious, and for a good ten minutes, you're not sure it's going to survive the transition. It does - barely - thanks to a climax that's more emotionally honest than the setup deserved.

The bigger issue is that the film wants to say something real about self-deception and the stories we tell ourselves, but it keeps interrupting itself with jokes. That's not automatically a flaw; some of the best dramedies thrive on that tension. Here, though, the comedy and the drama occasionally feel like two different scripts fighting for screen time. Still, when it works - and it works more often than not - Romanchakam hits that sweet spot where you're laughing one second and feeling a knot in your stomach the next.

Pros

• Sumanth Prabhas sells the arrogant-to-humbled arc with surprising subtlety
• Sharp, lived-in dialogue that captures how broke twenty-somethings actually talk
• A third act that refuses the easy romantic resolution
• Strong ensemble chemistry keeps the comedy afloat

Cons

• 140 minutes is a long runway for a movie that doesn't take off until hour two
• The tonal shift from comedy to darkness is jarring rather than seamless
• Some subplots with the friend group go nowhere
• The ending tries to land three emotional beats at once and fumbles one

Romanchakam is the movie equivalent of a first date that starts with great banter, gets weird in the middle, and ends with a confession you weren't ready for. It's not polished, and it's not subtle, but it's got heart, humor, and one genuinely surprising turn that justifies the ticket. If you can forgive a bloated runtime and a bumpy tonal ride, this Telugu dramedy is worth the trip. Just don't expect the lighthearted romp the trailer promised - expect something a little stranger, and a little sadder, and all the better for it.