Epic – First Semester (2026): Vaishnavi Chaitanya Deserves a Sharper, Less Confused Romance
A Wanaparthy boy steps off a flight into grey London carrying a filmmaking dream his father already replaced with a degree. Days later he shares a flat with Kadali, and the film’s best hours become two strangers negotiating a kitchen, a grocery bill and a future neither can afford.
Anand Deverakonda Plays Aditya as a Boy Who Adjusts, Never Argues
Anand Deverakonda keeps Aditya soft-natured, a young man adapting to UK life rather than conquering it. His chemistry with Vaishnavi Chaitanya in the flatmate stretches feels lived-in, never staged by the camera. The family-pressure scenes are his quietest work, where one phone call from home lands harder than any argument he has.
Vaishnavi Chaitanya carries the harder role, playing Kadali’s confusion without reducing it to a plot device. Her hesitation about the relationship registers as a real twenty-something’s uncertainty rather than screenwriting convenience. The writing hands her fewer clean beats than Deverakonda gets, and she still builds a person out of them.
Aditya Haasan Finds the Small Fragments, Then Refuses to Cut Them
Aditya Haasan directs best in fragments, stolen glances, small arguments, laughter arriving without warning. I found myself checking the runtime twice in the second half, which states the central flaw plainly. The screenplay stays linear and loose, and the middle stretch never earns its length.
The structure leaves a sense of incompleteness that the final act never resolves or even acknowledges. It raises questions about marriage, career and cost, then answers almost none of them. That vagueness might pass for honesty in a younger film; here it simply reads as unfinished writing.
Kadali and Aditya’s Flat Share Carries Every Beat That Matters
The romance works best when nothing dramatic happens at all. Flatmate scenes, shared meals, awkward silences, arguments over groceries in a London photographed as bright and colourful, do what the plotting cannot. Vaishnavi Chaitanya gives Kadali the film’s most contradictory writing and still locates a person inside it.
Emotional turning points arrive quietly: a question about the future, a conversation about money, a silence after a fight. Kadali’s hesitation reads as genuine ambivalence rather than indecision written for convenience, which is a harder performance than it looks. That restraint is the film’s sharpest romantic instinct.
Romance still needs momentum, and here the writing stalls badly. The second half circles the same confusion without advancing it, and intimacy begins standing in for development. By the resolution the couple has grown, but the story around them has only repeated itself.
If slow, tender Telugu romance is the register you return to, there is a wider shelf of Telugu romance reviews worth browsing.
Sivaji and Vasuki Make Two Parents the Real Antagonists
With no traditional villain, Sivaji and Vasuki carry the pressure, and their brief scenes land harder than any confrontation would. Sivaji’s father reads as practical rather than cruel, which makes the guilt he triggers harder to shrug off. There is no rage in him, only expectation.
Vasuki’s mother works in smaller strokes, her hopes spoken gently and therefore harder to refuse. The casting signals a film more interested in inherited duty than in open rebellion. Kalyan Shankar’s cameo earns its laughs, while Johannes Imomoh settles into the London texture without fuss.
Neither parent is written as a villain, which keeps the film’s central tension internal. Aditya wants their approval and his own life at once, and the story never lets him choose cheaply. That conflict is the most honest thing in the script.
A 2/5 From Great Andhra Tells You Which Camp to Trust
Great Andhra’s two-out-of-five verdict called it “Bold But Uneven”, while the audience score sits at 4.8 on IMDb, a telling gap. India Today found the film “turns ordinary moments into memories of young love”, though THR India’s reviewer was left asking “Why?”. Both readings are defensible, which is exactly the problem.
Complaints cluster around pacing, length and a derivative streak that the London backdrop only partly disguises. Nobody is complaining about the music, and Hesham Abdul Wahab’s “Sancharame” and “Priyasakhi” may outlast the film itself. The audience that showed up wanted a memory, not a lecture on uncertainty.
Watch it if a slow, tender romance about two students splitting rent in London sounds like your evening; skip it if you need a story that moves. The songs and the UK photography deserve a theatre screen, though nothing here suffers from waiting for streaming. Bring patience for the second half.
For another romance where what two people quietly negotiate matters more than plot machinery, One Last Game is worth your time.
Epic – First Semester is a 2.5-out-of-5 romance that finds its couple and loses its nerve in the middle.
The same refusal to trim a good thing past its natural length runs through Mirzapur’s franchise bloat.
Readers looking for more telugu drama reviews can explore them on Filmyfly.
Ankit Jaiswal is the Chief Author, covering Indian cinema and OTT releases with honest, no-filler criticism. An SEO strategist by background, he brings a research-driven approach to film writing, cutting through hype to tell you exactly what's worth your time.