Ugly Story is one of the small theatrical releases this week. Let's delve into its subject matter in this review.
Plot:
After losing her parents at a young age, Neha (Avika Gor) is taken in by her maternal uncle (Shivaji Raja). Over time, her cousin Karthik (Shree Nandu) develops an obsessive love for her, while Neha remains deeply attached to Gautham (Raviteja Mahadasyam), her childhood sweetheart. As Neha and Gautham’s relationship blossoms, Karthik’s possessiveness turns him into a dangerous psychopath.
The film follows Neha’s troubled journey as she is forced into marrying Karthik despite his abusive behavior, the trauma she endures after marriage, and the shocking incidents that leave both Neha and Karthik lying in pools of blood.
Post-Mortem:
When a person with a psychopathic personality enters a romantic or marital relationship, the dynamic is completely different from normal relational conflict. It operates on a foundation of control, exploitation, and a total lack of empathy, rather than mutual affection. Because people with psychopathy cannot form genuine emotional attachments, their version of love is transactional and predatory. The progression of these relationships almost always follows a specific, destructive pattern. You would expect Ugly Story to explore its lead man's dark psychology, given the premise. What you get is a dumbed down glorification of his theatrics, toxicity, and volatility.
Karthik's characterization is one-note. Yes, he is a dangerous husband but we know nothing about how he became such a pathological personality in the first place. A very lazy, half-baked backstory is narrated in a very basic fashion. The focus on Karthik is so sustained and the second-hand treatment afforded to his traumatized wife is so half-hearted that you wonder what is the motive of the film.
Every single time Karthik attacks someone, his violent behavior is stylized through a euphoric background score. There is no sense of disgust or melancholy. In one of the voyeuristic scenes, he lustily ogles at his wife in their car. The camera movement follows his eyes, zooming into her body. Whenever he utters his wife's name in a slow-paced way (to suggest desire), he is made to look semi-funny rather than the unlikeable personality that he is. The visual palette itself is ill-suited for a gloomy story of this sort. Some locations look lived-in and that's the only meritorious takeaway.
Ugly Story was supposed to make Karthik a hate figure and Neha an example for women who are trapped in suffocating relationships. Instead, it makes Karthik feel more important; the villainous lead gets two songs to advertise his kind of toxic love and his desperate longing for his object of love. In one of the early scenes, Karthik, a chain smoker, smokes on the floor of his workplace. He walks into his manager's cabin and royally blackmails her showing a video. This level of manipulation needs to be punished in the climax, but the ending is silly.
There was a time when our filmmakers used to have a sense of proportion while setting out to tell stories revolving essentially around two characters. Writer-director Pranav Swaroop doesn't even understand how some men overwhelm the partner with affection at the start. Right off the bat, Karthik is creepy and he tires you out with his monotony. He chants 'Neha.. Neha..' one thousand times.
Closing Remarks:
Ugly Story is ugly indeed.
