Iddarammayilatho

Plot

Central Minister (Rao Ramesh), is facing accusations over possessing black money of one hundred thousand crore, and money laundering it into Europe, through his un-suspecting daughter, Akanksha (Catherine Tresa), a psychology student who goes to Barcelona to pursue higher education. Akanksha finds a diary in her flat in Barcelona, and out of curiosity she starts reading the book which unfolds the romantic drama between Sanju Reddy (Allu Arjun) and Komali Shankaraabharanam (Amala Paul). Akanksha gets engaged in Paris with her father's hench man (Shawar Ali). Incidentally, she runs into Sanju Reddy, and gets to know him. Sanju is an engineer turned lead guitarist of a music band, and makes his living through stage and street performances. As narrated in the diary, Komali comes from an orthodox Telugu Brahmin family, as is interested in classical music, and ends up learning the violin, at a musical school in Barcelona under fiddle-professor, Brahma (Brahmanandam). In a twist of fate, she falls in love with Sanju and gets approval for their inter caste marriage, from their parents in India. Komali unknowingly gets caught after a video footage that she accidentally shot while Akanksha's father's henchman (Shawar Ali) kills the Spanish ambassador (Damien Mavis), in the process of money laundering. Sanju saves Komali from these henchmen, on a couple of occasions; this is where the story in the diary ends abruptly. Out of curiosity, Akanksha starts questioning Sanju about their love story and in the process ends up with disturbing facts.

On continuous asking by Akanksha, Sanju tells her that Komali is dead. It is then shown in flashback that for fixing the marriage of Sanju and Komali, their parents had come to Spain. It was at that time that Komali is kidnapped by Shawar Ali's brother (Subbaraju) and when Sanju comes to save her, Komali is murdered by Subba Raju. In a fit of rage, Sanju bashes up the whole gang and Subba Raju goes into coma. On hearing this, Akanksha feels pity for Sanju and falls in love with him. She also tries to bring Sanju out of the memory of Komali but in vain.

Meanwhile, Akanksha spots Komali crossing a street. Akanksha runs to Sanju to tell him about Komali and at that time, Sanju gets surrounded by the men of Shawar Ali. Sanju while bashing up Shawar Ali's men, tells Akanksha that it was his plan to trap Akanksha in his love to avenge the death of his and Komali's parents at the hands of Shawar Ali. It is then shown in flashback that after beating up Subba Raju, Sanju had taken the body of Komali to hospital, from where Sanju's father (Nassar) calls up the Central Minister to arrest Shawar Ali in Spain, after watching the video footage. The minister then calls up Shawar Ali to finish off this trouble in order to save himself. Shawar Ali, then goes to the hospital and kills Sanju's parents as well as Komali's parents and shoots Sanju and Komali and they are presumed dead. However, Sanju and Komali do not die. It is then revealed that Sanju has been waiting all this time to get his revenge and has made Akanksha his pawn in this game and it was he who faxed their photo in order to make Shawar Ali jealous, so that Shawar Ali will come himself to kill Sanju. Later it is revealed that Komali is not dead and they both wanted to avenge their parents death. Sanju and Komali lives happily and Akanksha lives alone.

Production

In September, Amala Paul was selected to play one of the female lead. First the makers chose Tapsee Pannu for another role, which was later received by Richa Gangopadhyay. But Richa was officially replaced and Tapsee Pannu was selected as the second female lead in the movie. Later, Catherine Tresa replaced her. Chakri was the initial choice for music director but Devi Sri Prasad was roped in later. The film was officially launched on 18 October 2012 at Ramanaidu Studios in Hyderabad. First Look of the movie was launched on 10 March 2013. The director winded up films and went to shot digitally using Arri Alexa cameras with ultra primelenses. A theatrical trailer was released on the occasion of Allu Arjun's birthday on 8 April 2013.

Release

The film's overseas rights are owned by Blue Sky for approximately ₹30 million (US$470,000) It released worldwide on 31 May 2013 with a U/A Certificate from the Censor Board. The movie released in a record no. of 175+ screens in overseas by Bluesky with Digital Quality on 30 May 2013.

Home media

The Blu-ray disc was released on 8 October 2013 through Sri Balaji video.

Reception

Iddarammayilatho received positive to mixed reviews among the critics, Jeevi of idlebrain.com gave a rating of 3 on scale of 5 and opined that first half is entertaining. It's a stylish film though emotions didn't work." Mahesh S Koneru of 123telugu.com gave a review stating "'Iddarammayilatho' is a very stylish offering from Puri Jagan. Allu Arjun's performance, Catherine's glamour and the action sequences are assets for the film. Slow pace in the second half and the absence of traditional Puri Jagan elements like heroism and punch dialogues might hamper the overall experience." Girija Narayan of Oneindia Entertainment gave a review stating "Iddarammayilatho is definitely a good movie to watch. The movie gets a lot more interesting in the second half. The climax definitely lets the viewers go home happy." Sasidhar AS of The Times of India gave a review stating "Iddarammayilatho hits you like fresh air, and you instantly fall for the lead characters, refreshingly flesh-and-blood with their set of quirks, flaws and strengths. The first half does ramble a bit and takes time to build up into a riveting second half." APHerald.com gave a review stating "Iddarammayilatho is one time watcher and entire credit goes to Puri Jagannadh." SuperGoodMovies gave a review stating "'Iddarammayilatho' is a beautiful and stylish movie of Allu Arjun and Puri Jagannath. Definitely it is a worthy watch."

India

The film had a Good Start in A, B and C Centres in its first weekend. The film collected ₹195 million (US$3.0 million) on its opening day at worldwide circuits which is a record for Allu Arjun. It showed improvement irrespective of mixed reviews, ending up with a collection of ₹270 million (US$4.2 million) in 3 Days at the Indian Box Office. The movie collected a total of ₹ 450 million at the Box Office at the end of its opening week. The film continued to gross steady revenues at all areas, receiving much better response at A Centres, when compared to B and C Centres. The film completed 50 Days in 19 Direct Centers on 19 July 2013. In Nizam Area Iddaramyilatho collected a Share of ₹125 million (US$1.9 million) in 70 Days.

Overseas

The movie collected a total of 9174,000 in just 3 days of release. At its opening weekend, the movie collected a total of 17.1 million at the USA Box office. Iddaramyilatho was a good grosser at overseas It collected $1 million in its full run.Iddaramyilatho earned ₹ 13 million through Premier Shows in the U.S.A. Even before its release

Soundtrack

Devi Sri Prasad, composed the music collaborating with sixth time with Allu Arjun and for first time with Puri Jagan. Pop and reagge singer Apache Indian has teamed up for Devi Sri Prasad to sing a song in this film, which is the first time Apache Indian has sung a Telugu song in his career. The audio launch took place on 28 April 2013 at Shilpakala Vedika in Hyderabad.

The audio got positive response. APHerald.com gave a review stating "Refreshing tracks from Devi Sri Prasad and this time stylish star Allu Arjun got stylish songs too from DSP." Cineoutlook.com gave a review stating "Very good musical scores. Going to rock in the coming days…"

Trivia

In the film, Allu Arjun and his band are seen playing "Suhana Safar Aur Yeh Mausam" from the 1958 Bollywood film Madhumati. The song "Top Lechipoddi" was remixed in the 2014 Dhallywood film Hero: The Superstar as "I Love You Hero".