Hippi movie review highlights: Kartikeya's film is extremely problematic

TN Krishna makes his Telugu debut with Kartikeya, Digangana Suryavanshi and JD Chakravarty starrer

Hippi

which sees music by Nivas K Prasanna.

Devadas urf Hippi (Kartikeya) is a boxer turned techie frustrated with his girlfriend Amukta Malyada (Digangana Suryavanshi). He believes his life will only get better once he breaks up with her because he cannot put up with the fact that she asks him to stay responsible, pulls pranks on him when she doesn't get the attention she craves or has, to put it simply - turned his whole life upside down. The same person who had once wooed her incessantly in the past, even almost ruining her relationship with her friend, now seems to cherish his time away from her.

While the first half drags on between two different timelines, Hippi is extremely problematic with its casual ageist, sexist remarks that are passed off as jokes. The film also makes light of suicidal tendencies and sexual abuse at workplace. In a time and age when numerous women (and men) have been fighting for their mental health and abuse at workplace to be taken seriously, to create a character like JD Chakravarty's and write dialogues calling a woman an 'item' are a definite no. In between all the muck, the film does have a narrative that is interesting on paper. The film also seems to have a semblance of a story, even if it might not be astoundingly original.

Minus all the problematic goss and outdated jokes about erections every few minutes, does Hippi even have an interesting story to tell? Only the second half will tell.