Unhinged, unserious, unabashedly hilarious

Mouli makes a sparkling film debut in the Sai Marthand directorial that embraces a kind of light-heartedness rarely seen in Telugu films

- BH HARSH

Little Hearts, written and directed by Sai Marthand, is dedicated to 'memers' in its opening credits. It makes sense. There is a consistent presence of memes in the narrative. Akhil, our protagonist, spends a lot of his time on the internet, seeking answers about how to deal with his frivolous problems, when not making pseudo-philosophical posts about life. More crucially, there is a calculated sense of unseriousness to the film, and I mean it in the best way possible.

Little Hearts is amusing and, more importantly, lighthearted to a degree that I haven't seen in any recent Telugu film. Produced by Aditya Hasan, Little Hearts revolves around the bubblegum romance between Akhil (Mouli Tanuj Prasanth) and Khathayani (Shivani Nagaram), two young students who continue to struggle academically even as they waltz through life and their parents' overwhelming expectations. It's a love story, alright, but not necessarily laden with strong emotions. In fact, there is barely a moment in the film where you can recall a character feeling emotional or the audience compelled to be serious. Two moments at best, that's it—and that's rare. The best of comic films succumb to this unnecessary need to be 'wholesome' and incorporate sentimentality when they don't have to. Little Hearts doesn't make that mistake.