Directed by Prakash Kovelamudi, Size Zero is about Soundharya (Anushka Shetty) an obese youth from a middle class family likes Abhi (Arya) from the first instance. The happy go lucky Soundarya works in a local Chinese fast food center Chungkung Express. She is a foodie to the core for which she gets univocal support from the grandfather played by Gullapudi Maruthi Rao. Her partner in crime Jyothi (Pavani Gangireddy), a wannabe model for whom Sweety is the only person she can completely depend on when she is in trouble. The conflict quotient apart from food comes in the form of mother (Urvasi), who coerces Sweety to join Size Zero Slimming Centre run by Satyanand (Prakash Raaj). This suave trainer turns out to be a villain for the roly-poly customers, who use “Different Drugs” to burn fat and causes unnecessary health issues. And like all fairytales, rest of the Size Zero is all about “If your goal is common good of the people then you can achieve unprecedented success”.
Anushka Shetty is perfect in the titular role, and it doesn’t surprise me the least, that she wins in every possible battle in life. The gigantic shoulders, round cheeks, the plump heinie and the swingy pace… Anushka is every bit what the role demands her to be. She even sports a shamefaced smile that adds to the twinkle in her eyes. Arya sleepwalks through the role and so does Sonal Chauhan. The latter tries in vain to come up with a style of dialogue delivery to evoke laughs, maybe like an NRI. Among the other artists, Brahmanandam seems to have no character whatsoever and Pavani Gangireddy makes only a limited impression. Urvasi, Gollapudi Maruthi Rao look confident in their limited roles. Cameos by Rana Daggubati, Nagarjuna, Hansika Motwani, Tamannaah Bhatia, Lakshmi Machu, Jiiva and Bobby Simha are fine.
Director Prakash Kovelamudi’s Size Zero has nothing new. Size Zero is drastically different from Breillat’s Fat Girl (2001) that talked about a girl with overweight issue, for whom world around gets darker with each passing day. The busts of depression that Anushka goes through are however momentary and bounces back in no time all refreshed and rejuvenated. With a script that is shaky from the word go, director Prakash Kovelamudi is on a weak ground here. The movie has perhaps been churned up to make use of Overweight issues, Unnatural weight reduction, Unconditional Love, pre-marriage issues..etc. But for all those things you needs a credible plotline and screenplay to make it engaging and entertaining right?. The entire first half moves ahead with no sense of direction and when the latter half follows suit it all turns quite sour. The instant appeal that the viewer is expected to develop towards Soundarya, Prakash Raaj and Arya characters, unfortunately never occurs.
The climax of Size Zero is even more disappointing, first 30 minutes before the credits finally roll up, the film grinds to a mires. The inevitable happens and then it slowly splutters up a start again and goes another quarter of an hour. Unfortunately director was unable to deliver the final denunciation with conviction. The film tries too hard to leave an impact and that to in a genre that has been long dead. No wonder that expectations are never fulfilled. The ideas are stale leave the audience numb and their anticipations get caught in this conventional ramp.
The technical aspects are purely in sync with the overall appalling quality of the film. There is nothing much to rave about the cinematography by Nirav Shah, little to comment on the editing and even lesser to observe on the art direction. Music by M M Keeravani is middling and melancholiac BGM score adds a fazing power to the proceedings. Even if you do feel that film could have been better without songs. CG work by Firefly is good. Production value of PVP cinema is fine.
There are always films that take a decent start and even show some promising premise of being surprising winners. And then something atrocious happens that forces it to take a nose dive and all is lost. There have been many films in the past from Kobaribondam to Laddubabu that handled similar themes. But the makers of Size Zero have just mixed an obese issue with unhealthy diet, Slimming Centres angle, Marriage issues, innate love and message, without a proper recipe. Just like it happens in cookery, they end up making a tasteless dish with too many unnecessary ingredients. Try this one at your own risk.
