Darling

Cast: Prabhas, Kajal, Prabhu, Dharmavarapu, MS Narayana, Ahuti Prasad, Srinivasa Reddy, Raja Sridhar, Prabhas Srinu and others.
Action: Peter Hein.
Art: Ashok.
Banner: Sri Venkateswara Cine Chitra.
Choreography: Kalyan.
Cinematography: Andrew.
Dialogues: Swami.
Editing: Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao.
Lyrics: Anantha Sriram.
Music: GV Prakash Kumar.
Producer: BVSN Prasad.
Story, Screenplay & Director: A. Karunakaran.
Release Date: April 23, 2010


‘Darling’ is the word that Prabhas uses to call his close pals. That was made a title now for the movie with him in lead. Darling too, opens with promise as it has Karunakaran's trademark comedy and his penchant for showcasing clean wholesome family entertainment
Story:
The movie starts with enthusiastic 1980 backdrop in black and white. The college mates disperse after farewell and they keep themselves in contact even after decades.

Prabha (Prabhas) is the son of one of those old friends (Prabhu) and Nandini (Kajal) is the daughter of another (Ahuti Prasad). They live in various places.

A lady (Shradhdha Das) loves Prabha and proposes him. But he negates. The father of that lady is a goon (Mukesh Rishi) who surrounds Prabha and his friends’ gang for negating his daughter. To escape from that goon Prabha narrates his flash back stating that he has love interest by name Nandini and he met her in Switzerland. The goon leaves him knowing that.

After a while, the old friends wish to have old friends’ reunion with families. They all meet in a village and how Prabha and Nandini meet again (?) and end up with love-union forms rest of the story. Many twists, turns and secrets will be unleashed in narration for the entertainment of audience.
 
Performances:
Prabhas is at his best. His gait, his glow, his performance and confidence carried the movie happily. Prabhas is refreshingly different in this film. No flexing of muscles and no heavy dialogues. He appears down to earth and is quite endearing too.

Kajal enticed audiences with her magnetism. Shradhdha Das, although had small role, she made her presence felt.


Analysis:
The major asset for this movie is Prabhas who handled the audience with his great looks and confident performance. Female audiences definitely feel ectopic tintinnabulations in their heart.
True to Karunakaran's style, Darling is a family entertainer. It's clean, there is no double entendre, no violent stunts, and even the fight scene in Switzerland was well executed. Surprisingly no item numbers too! 
Music plays a vital role in all of Karunakaran's films, and music by newcomer Prakash is good. Same with the cinematography and Switzerland and Araku have been canned beautifully.

The best parts of the movie are:
Prabhas
Peter Hein’s fight compositions
‘Kadupu Manta’ scene between Prabhas and Srinivas Reddy
Inka Edo song picturization
Watching Hyderabad with Switzerland snowfal