Wacky, funny and dark, Mithai will be like nothing you’ve ever seen: Prashant Kumar

When it released, the trailer of debutant Prashant Kumar’s Mithai went viral on social media, surprising many with its trippy content. Curious, we caught up with the director to know more than what little the trailer reveals before the film’s release on February 22. “Usually in films, you see that good things happen to good people and vice versa. But in Mithai, it will be the other way around,” says the director, adding, “The film’s story will take place across three days.”
But what is Mithai all about? “Sai, played by Rahul Ramakrishna, is in a tough phase of his life in the film.He is all set to get married, but he loses his job and his house gets burgled. On top of all that, he takes up a challenge that he will only get married after he finds the burglar. How he embarks on this journey with his best friend Jani, played by Priyadarshi, and encounters other people along the way is what the story is all about,” he explains.
While on the surface it would seem like Rahul Ramakrishna and Priyadarshi are the main leads of the film, Prashant explains that his film has no quintessential ‘hero’. “It’s a film that’s completely driven by various characters and their actions, so everyone is equally important irrespective of their screen-time. Kamal Kamaraju, Ravi Varma, debutant Arsha, Swetaa, Bhushan and Aditi Myakal also feature in my film. They all came on-board because they loved my story so much,” he says.
But why the name Mithai, we ask. “The name I first chose for it was ‘Take it Easy’ but my dear friend Sandeep Reddy Vanga was the one who suggested I name it Mithai. I fell in love with the name and got it registered the very next day,” he says. “After Sandeep and Kranti Madhav both released their films, they wondered when I would make a film of my own. And one fine day, the idea just struck me when I came home drunk and forgot to lock the door. In the morning, when I wondered what could’ve happened, the story just flowed from there,” he adds.
From the teaser, which sees Rahul Ramakrishna’s character deliver a hilarious soliloquy on the cons of being stuck in a corporate job, it seemed like that was something the film touches upon too. “The film explores many themes and yes, being stuck in jobs we hate is one of them,” he laughs, adding, “In fact, that idea came very organically to me when I was crossing the IT area in Hyderabad and could see thousands swarming out of offices. I could hardly see any happy faces there. The Liberation Song also explores about being free from jobs we don’t like. Vivek Sagar, the composer, thankfully loved the idea as much as I did.”
Prashant reveals that this particular song will span 7-minutes in the film and that they spent Rs 35 lakh of their meagre budget just on the song. “The film has 2D animation and we created an office set in the middle of a jungle just for it. We got 100 monitors and hammers, had extras break the monitors, it was so fun to shoot it,” he says, adding, “But apart from this, the film will also explore priorities in life, friendship, how not to take anything seriously and coincidences – my film has a lot of coincidences.”
So is Mithai a coming-of-age film, we ask. “No one in my film learns anything by the end; they remain the same as they did when the film began. So I don’t think it can be called coming-of-age,” he laughs. In fact, the film is the complete opposite, he reveals. “It’s a wacky, funny and dark comedy of the likes you’ve never seen. I was really worried when I finished the story, but luckily, I got a great cast and crew and we shot the film in a span of 56 days.”
Hailing from Bihar, Prashant who has been staying in Hyderabad in 2003 wrote the script in English, he reveals. “It came out really dark when I first wrote it, before I fleshed it out into what it is now. I contacted some famous writers to help me translate but whatever they wrote never had the soul intact. Vivek Sagar too read the translated versions and didn’t like them. So finally, we decided to give the entire script to Rahul and have him translate it. It worked out spectacularly well because he did it with Telangana dialect. Bushan on the other hand translated his own dialogues,” he says.
When quizzed on why a Bihari would choose to make a quirky film in a language he doesn’t know, he says, “I have been in Hyderabad long enough to know the industry well. I have so many friends from the industry that I know what the audience here can digest,” he says, adding, “Besides, I’ve never believed the filmmakers who state about what the audience like or don’t like. Filmmaking is all about experimentation. Not everything is rosy in life and our films needs to reflect that.”
Apart from the extensive cast of good actors, Prashant’s trailer reveals that his film also features a goat named Sundari and a donkey. “When I first imagined the scene with the donkey, it was with a horse. But Rahul didn’t know how to ride one nor did our budget allow it. The donkey worked out well in terms of the script too because it was symbolic of how Jesus came to Jerusalem on a donkey,” he reveals. “The goat too came in place of a dog, which again wasn’t fitting our budget. But I feel the goat fits the film better than a dog would. The cast was surprised too, but they’ve learnt to go along with it,” he says, rounding off.