Telusu Kada (2025) Review: Honest Look at Neeraja Kona's

Varun (Siddhu Jonnalagadda) and Raaga Kumar (Srinidhi Shetty) are a happily married couple whose world revolves around a single, agonizing problem: they cannot conceive. After years of treatments, failed cycles, and the quiet erosion of hope, their relationship strains under the pressure. Enter Anjali (Raashii Khanna), Varun’s ex-girlfriend, who resurfaces with a shocking offer - she will be their surrogate. What follows is a messy triangle of gratitude, jealousy, old wounds, and new boundaries, as the couple must decide whether to accept a gift that threatens to tear them apart. The second half shifts into a legal and emotional battlefield, testing the limits of their marriage and Anjali’s selflessness.

Let’s address the elephant in the room immediately: the central hook is preposterous. An ex-partner offering to carry your child is not a “complicated turn”; it’s a telenovela twist. And while director Neeraaja Kona tries to ground it in realistic dialogue and nuanced performances, she can’t escape the fundamental implausibility of the setup. Every time the film tries to make us believe this is a rational, selfless act, a nagging voice reminds us that no sane person would navigate this emotional minefield without a therapy session every hour.

Yet, for all its contrivance, the film’s first half is surprisingly watchable. Jonnalagadda, best known for his comedic timing, sheds his usual persona to play Varun with a weary, clenched-jaw desperation. He’s excellent in the scenes where he silently watches Raaga cry in the bathroom, or when he snaps at a well-meaning relative who asks, “So, any good news?” It’s a restrained performance that hints at a deeper actor beneath the wisecracks.

Srinidhi Shetty, however, is a bit of a puzzle. She has the physicality and the grace, but her Raaga often feels like she’s performing grief rather than living it. Her eyes well up on cue, her voice cracks at the right moments, yet there’s a superficiality to it - a sense that she’s playing a checklist of emotions. That changes in her one big confrontation scene with Anjali, where Shetty finally lets the mask slip, and you see the raw, vulturous possessiveness of a woman terrified of losing her husband to someone who can give him what she cannot. It’s a shame the rest of her performance doesn’t reach that peak.

And then there’s Raashii Khanna, who single-handedly rescues the film from mediocrity. As Anjali, she’s a cauldron of contradictions: serene yet melancholic, giving yet guarded. Khanna doesn’t play Anjali as a saint or a schemer; she plays her as a woman who still loves Varun but has made peace with her role as an outsider. Her best scene is a quiet one - sitting alone in a clinic, one hand on her not-yet-visible bump, humming a lullaby she’ll never sing to the child. It’s a moment of profound loneliness that the script doesn’t deserve, and Khanna earns every tear.

The film’s fatal flaw, however, is its insistence on adding artificial conflict. Just when you think the couple has accepted the surrogacy, a random DNA-test subplot appears, followed by a familial interference track involving Sanjay Swaroop’s overbearing father. These detours feel like padding, as if Kona didn’t trust the audience to stay invested in the internal drama. The climax, involving a sudden legal threat to the unborn child, is so absurdly drawn out that it undermines all the quiet credibility built earlier. You start to wonder if you’re watching a different movie than the one that began.

Technically, the film is polished. The cinematography bathes Hyderabad in warm, autumnal tones, and the background score, while intrusive at times, knows when to go silent. But the editing is an issue - multiple montages of waiting rooms and hospital corridors pad the runtime, making 132 minutes feel closer to two-and-a-half hours.

Pros

• Raashii Khanna delivers a career-best, heartbreakingly restrained performance.
• Siddhu Jonnalagadda proves he’s more than a comedian with a deeply vulnerable turn.
• The initial portrayal of infertility’s toll on a marriage is raw and authentic.
• Strong production values and a restrained first half that respects the subject.

Cons

• The central premise of an ex-partner becoming surrogate strains all credibility.
• Srinidhi Shetty’s performance is inconsistent, flat in key emotional scenes.
• A bloated second half with unnecessary subplots that dilute the drama.
• The resolution feels rushed and convenient, undercutting the earlier realism.

Telusu Kada is a film at war with itself. It wants to be a quiet, observant drama about the quiet devastation of infertility, but it also wants to be a mainstream entertainer with dramatic twists. The result is a lopsided movie that pleads for your tears with one hand while pushing you away with the other. The performances, especially Khanna’s luminous work, deserve a better script - one that trusted its core theme instead of burying it under manufactured conflict. For those determined to see it, go for the acting. But go with low expectations, and you might leave with a tempered appreciation for what could have been a landmark Telugu film on a taboo topic - but instead is just another missed opportunity.