RRR

RRR is a 2022 Telugu-language epic period action drama directed by S. S. Rajamouli. It imagines a friendship between two real Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, who never met in history, and sets their story in 1920s Delhi under British rule. N. T. Rama Rao Jr. plays Bheem and Ram Charan plays Raju. The film went on to become one of the most widely seen Indian films of its decade, and its song “Naatu Naatu” won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

The idea behind the film

Rajamouli came across accounts of Sitarama Raju and Bheem and was struck by how their lives seemed to mirror each other. He started asking what might have happened if the two had crossed paths and become friends, and built the film around that question. The original story came from his father, V. Vijayendra Prasad, and Rajamouli co-wrote the screenplay with him, spending about six months on the script.

The title began as a working label: the three Rs stood for Rajamouli, Ram Charan and Rama Rao. The director later kept it as the official title because he wanted one name that would work in every language the film was released in.

Story

The film opens in a forest in Adilabad, where the British governor Scott Buxton and his wife Catherine take a young Gond girl, Malli, away from her tribe. Bheem, the tribe’s protector, travels to Delhi to bring her home and hides in the city under an assumed name.

Raju is an ambitious officer in the colonial police, and he is given the job of finding the man who has come for the child. Neither knows who the other really is. After the two men save a boy trapped under a burning train wreck, working together without a word, they become close friends. The heart of the story is what happens to that friendship once each discovers the truth, and why Raju serves the British at all. The film keeps its answers for the second half, and this summary stops short of them.

Cast

Alongside its two leads, RRR has a large ensemble:

• N. T. Rama Rao Jr. as Komaram Bheem
• Ram Charan as Alluri Sitarama Raju
• Ajay Devgn and Alia Bhatt in supporting roles
• Shriya Saran and Samuthirakani
• Ray Stevenson, Alison Doody and Olivia Morris

The film was the first Telugu film for Devgn, Bhatt, Stevenson, Doody and Morris.

Making the film

Rajamouli first spoke about the project in late 2017, while talking about his plans after Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, and that November he shared a photograph with his two lead actors that hinted at the casting. The film was formally announced in March 2018.

Shooting began in Hyderabad in November 2018. The COVID-19 pandemic stretched the schedule considerably, and principal photography did not finish until August 2021. Most of the film was shot across India, with some sequences filmed in Ukraine and Bulgaria. It was produced by D. V. V. Danayya under the DVV Entertainment banner, and the source reports a budget of ₹550 crore, which made it the most expensive Indian film at the time.

The technical team included cinematographer K. K. Senthil Kumar, editor A. Sreekar Prasad, production designer Sabu Cyril and visual effects supervisor V. Srinivas Mohan. Sai Madhav Burra wrote the Telugu dialogue.

Music

M. M. Keeravani composed both the songs and the background score. The soundtrack became the film’s most famous export: “Naatu Naatu” won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 95th Academy Awards. It was the first song from an Asian film to win that category, and the win made RRR the first Indian feature film to receive an Academy Award. The song also won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

Release and box office

RRR opened in cinemas on 25 March 2022 and was the first Indian film released in the Dolby Cinema format. Its opening day was the biggest recorded for an Indian film at the time, and it became the highest-grossing film in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, its home market. According to the source, it went on to gross between ₹1,300 and ₹1,387 crore worldwide and was the highest-grossing Indian film of 2022.

Reception and awards

Critics praised the direction, writing, performances, cinematography, music, action sequences and visual effects. Beyond India, the National Board of Review named it one of the ten best films of the year, only the second non-English-language film to make that list.

Awards followed across several countries. RRR became the first Telugu film nominated at the Golden Globe Awards, and at the Critics’ Choice Awards it won Best Foreign Language Film and Best Song. At home, it received six awards at the 69th National Film Awards, including Best Popular Feature Film, Best Music Direction for Keeravani and Best Male Playback Singer for Kaala Bhairava’s “Komuram Bheemudo”.

Why it matters for Telugu cinema

RRR carried Telugu cinema further onto the world stage than almost any film before it. Coming after Rajamouli’s Baahubali films, it showed that a Telugu-language production could compete at international awards and reach audiences far outside India, and it made “Naatu Naatu” one of the best-known pieces of Indian film music abroad.

Sources: Wikipedia and Wikidata.