Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo’ on Netflix, A Telegu Blockbuster About Being Switched At Birth

Upon release, the heavily hyped Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo was marketed as a film that would not hit streaming services anytime soon in a clear effort to get audiences to the theaters. But just a month after its release, the Telegu film about children switched at birth has landed on Netflix.

ALA VAIKUNTHAPURRAMULOO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: When millionaire Ramachandran’s son is stillborn, a nurse swaps the baby with that of the clerks’, Valmiki. The son wakes up but the switch is never rectified; Valmiki desires his son to live in opulence, and thus the two sons grow up in families that are never truly theirs. Because of this, Alla Arjun’s Bantu has lived a troubled life—despite his smarts, obvious strength, and charming personality, his “father,” has never accepted him.

But when the company is sabotaged by a rival and a near-fatal hit on Ramachandran is delivered, Bantu must step in to bring them down and save his family. In the hospital, Bantu meets the nurse who changed his life and he must make a choice between claiming his true life at the destruction of his family or continuing to live with the status quo.

What Will It Remind You Of?: Babies switched or separated at birth is not a new cinematic concept, and Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo has shades of all of them—The Parent Trap, Switched at Birth, etc. But more notably, the first hour of the film plays more like the fairytale Cinderella than anything else: Bantu is the titular character who is constantly being derided by a parental figure that doesn’t love him, and doesn’t even try to pretend.

Performance Worth Watching: Murali Sharma, who plays Valmiki, is delightfully sinister in an oddly gentle way. He’s the architect of the whole drama and his motives are horrifying, but Sharma’s performance balances the character and makes him believable when he could’ve been a caricature.

Memorable Dialogue: Bantu and Valmiki constantly chide each other with a drawn out “relaaaxxxx.” Their taunts make up a large part of the film and it works as a set up for their strained relationship.

Sex and Skin: Aside from a clandestine kiss, nothing more to see here.

Our Take: As far as switched at birth stories go, Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo is intriguing, largely due to Allu Arjun’s charm and a strong supporting cast.

In line with many South Indian films, there is a bit of a drag in the middle act with a somewhat suspended reality regarding Bantu’s inhumane strength—that Bantu just randomly gets into fights and comes out unscathed is a headscratcher. But at the end of the day, it’s a masala flick (which joins every genre together into one film), and this one manages to stay mostly entertaining.

As usual, I wanted more for the women to do, though I am pleasantly surprised that the one main female character was the CEO of her company. Still, her short skirts and long legs are objectified, and she is ultimately betrothed to Ramachandran’s son against her will so it seems that there is still some room for South Asian cinema to grow.

Our Call: STREAM IT. At a runtime of two hours and 41 minutes, there are certainly some moments where it loses your attention. But the majority of Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo is chock full of entertaining dialogue and interesting characters that lends itself to a good way to pass the time.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, and Brown Girl Magazine. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.

Stream Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo on Netflix