Anger Tales
Introduction
Onto the next release of the day and I finished watching the new Telugu anthology series titled Anger Tales which is now streaming on Hotstar. The thing with anthology is that it treads a fine line between being outstanding and watered down. Quite honestly, it is a bit of a hit and a miss kind of a genre with literally a platter up for grabs! Very rarely will you see an anthology wherein all stories score. But the same may not be true the other way too. There can be anthologies wherein no stories would hit the mark. That said does Anger Tales manage to impress, lets find out.
Story & Screenplay
Anger Tales is an anthology comprising of 4 tales with its core theme of anger. As you would know, anger as an emotion is very powerful and so your expectations from the anthology would be explosive tales simmering with anger. But contrary to your expectations, the tales here are quirky and I really did not mind that. My issue with atleast 3 of the 4 tales was its diluted ending which just did not sit right and neither did it explore the ‘anger’ issues.
There are four distinct tales and for me the one that stood out was ‘An Afternoon Nap’ which did explore ‘anger’ as an emotion really well. The tensions did go on escalating after every scene leading to an end which was explosive but then in that very second, over indulgent too. Had they left the ending at the scene prior to the eventual one, the impact would have been even better. But I honestly cannot say the same about the other tales.
It really did make me angry that each of the other 3 tales had a storyline which had the potential for an explosion at the end. But the timid endings just did not sit right and in a couple of instances, they were so off the boil that they wern’t even true to the core emotion. For instance, in the tale ‘Food Festival’, it did tread along well until the ending which was quite honestly in the quirky space and did not really explode. An explosion could have well been a weird one, like the wife poisoning the nagging husband who would stop her from eating non-veg, only to enjoy a chicken leg looking at his corpse. How does that sound?
Similarly, in the tale ‘Benefit Show’, it was a relevant tale on how fans are often cheated by superstars(not all) but the final showdown just did not arrive, with the writers opting for an end that barely shows a glimpse of things to follow. ‘Helmet Head’ had the most potential but that ending again was such a huge letdown and that ending just did not make any remote bit of sense. So overall, the screenplay in each of the stories does leave a lot to be desired with respect to its ending that lowers the overall impact of the film.
Dialogues, Music & Direction
The dialogues are conversational and they make for a decent impact. I feel the BGM could have been used a lot better like the use of a pressure cooker whistle to showcase the simmering tension. The cinematography is again alright, nothing much to shout about. Director Prabhala Tilak does a fair job but he just lacks the finishing move in each of the tales, over-compensating in one tale and missing the mark in the other three.
Performances
The performances are good here. Suhas and Venkatesh Maha shine in the first story. Madonna Sebastian and Tharun Bhasker are pretty good in the second tale. The best performer for me was Bindu Madhavi in the third tale who did have the best written character too and performed brilliantly by her. Phani Acharya does a swell job in the final tale too.
Conclusion
Anger Tales is a watered down anthology suffering inexplicably from diluted endings which may in turn anger you for the worse. Available on Hotstar.