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Arjun Reddy is a 2017 Indian Telugu language-language romantic drama film written and directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, and produced by his brother Pranay Reddy Vanga's company Bhadrakali Pictures. The film stars Vijay Deverakonda and Shalini Pandey while Rahul Ramakrishna, Jia Sharma, Sanjay Swaroop, Gopinath Bhat, Kamal Kamaraju and Kanchana appear in supporting roles. The film tells the story of Arjun Reddy Deshmukh (Deverakonda), a wealthy high-functioning alcoholic surgeon with anger management problems. Arjun is on a self-destructive path after the marriage of his girlfriend Preethi Shetty (Pandey); the film focuses on his downfall and subsequent resurgence.
Arjun Reddy was partially inspired by Sandeep Vanga's life as a physiotherapy student. He worked on the script for two years and it took four to five years for the film to materialise. Principal photography commenced on 20 June 2016 at Hyderabad and took 86 working days to complete. Other filming locations include Mangalore, Dehradun and New Delhi, filming also took place in Italy. Radhan and Harshvardhan Rameshwar composed the soundtrack and score, respectively. Raj Thota was director of photography and Shashank Mali edited the film.
Made on a budget of 5–5.15 crore; the film was released worldwide on 25 August 2017. It received widespread critical acclaim, but drew criticism for allegedly promoting toxic masculinity, Misogyny and substance abuse among young people. The film was a huge box office success, grossing 51 crore globally, with a distributor share of 25.5 crore.
It received six nominations at the 65th Filmfare Awards South, including Best Telugu Film and Best Telugu Director for Vanga; the film's only win was Best Telugu Actor for Deverakonda. The film was remade in Hindi as Kabir Singh (2019) and twice in Tamil language: as Adithya Varma (2019) and Varmaa (2020).
Arjun and his friend Shiva enter a junior classroom amidst a class and the former intimidates them against going after Preethi, asserting that she belongs to him. Initially uneasy about his conduct, Preethi finds comfort in a relationship with Arjun and reciprocates his feelings, prompting an intimate relationship. In the meanwhile, Arjun beats up Amit, a member of the opponent football team he fought with, as he misbehaves with Preethi for vengeance and threatens him to guard her as a brother in his absence. Arjun graduates with an MBBS degree and leaves for Mussoorie in pursuit of a Master's degree in Orthopedic surgery. Years pass by and their bond strengthens.
While Arjun's family rejoices over his brother Gautham's forthcoming wedding, Arjun visits Preethi's home to talk to her parents but Devdas Shetty, her father, sees them in an intimiate moment and throws him out of the house, declaring his strong disapproval of their relationship owing to his brash behaviour and mainly because they belong to different castes. Arjun's grandmother explains to an aggressive Arjun that marriage is a thing between two families and persuades him to convince Preethi's father, sharing her own experiences and troubles convincing her family about her relationship with his grandfather. Arjun tries talking to Devdas but is insulted again. Enraged, he asks Preethi to decide what she wants within six hours; otherwise, he will end their relationship. After this conflict, Preethi's parents seize her phone and arrange her marriage with a guy who belongs to their caste. Nevertheless, she manages to go to his house but unbenknownst to her, he is heavily drunk and injects excessive morphine into himself in agony, thereby losing his consciousness for about 36 hours. Preethi is taken away and forcibly married to her fiancé and Gautham gets married, all of which Arjun learns from Shiva after regaining his senes. Devastated, he rushes to Preethi's house and creates a scene but is beaten and apprehended by the police. Humiliated by Arjun's demeanour, his father Dhanunjay Reddy throws him out him from the household.
Shiva helps Arjun rent a flat and join a corporate hospital as a surgeon. To deal with his trauma, Arjun begins to drink, smoke, take drugs and attempt one-night stands, all of which fail to cure his distress. He soon becomes a successful surgeon with an abnormally high surgery count and his colleagues are apprehensive of his short-temper. His addictions and refusal to move on from Preethi worries Shiva and another friend Kamal. Jia Sharma, an acclaimed film actress, consults Arjun for treatment but takes a liking to him. Arjun proposes to be in a no-strings-attached physical relationship and she agrees. However, he soon ends it when she falls in love with him.
Despite being on a leave, Arjun reluctantly agrees to perform a life-saving surgery but because of being intoxicated, he collapses from dehydration amidst the surgery. The hospital authorities collect his blood samples and discover traces of cocaine and alcohol. A case is filed against him; Gautham recruits an intelligent advocate Vipul and arranges for an in-house court hearing but Arjun, out of guilt, confesses to have violated his ethics, causing his mecial license to be suspended for five years and he is evicted from the flat. While resting on a footpath, Shiva comes for him and told him about his grandmother's death, taking him home. Arjun reconciles with his father after his grandmother's funeral, abandons his self-destructive habits and goes on a vacation, heeding to his father's advice.
En route to the airport, he spots a pregnant Preethi in a park but proceeds with his vacation. Convinced that she is unhappy with her marriage, he meets her again at the same park after his vacation. After the misunderstandings clear, Preethi tells Arjun that she left her husband three days after the marriage and hasn't even contacted her family since then; she tells him that the child is his. They share an emotional reunion and get married, with the consent of Arjun' family. Devdas visits them soom and apologizes for being insensitive to their pure relationship.
Arjun Reddy was partially inspired from Vanga's life as a physiotherapy student: "It is not my story but there are a lot of references from my life ... Some of my medical college friends saw the film and said that Arjun reminds them of me." After working on a scene, he used to wait for a week as he believed that for a film with twists and turns, the narrative would have a chance to jump, thereby giving scope for cinematic liberties. For the same, whenever the idea for a plot twist came to him, Vanga used to work on it for three to four weeks.
In a September 2017 interview with Sangeetha Devi Dundoo of The Hindu, Vanga said he believed that Telugu cinema uses dialects spoken in Guntur and Vijayawada. Since he was unaware of the way of speaking in both the places, he wrote the dialogue in a Hyderabad Telangana accent. He made use of words that were rarely spoken in colloquialism Telugu like yaralu (sister-in-law) to make Arjun look "real and rooted". Some of the dialogue was written in Tulu language. With a dark mood prevailing for 100 minutes, Vanga wanted a happy ending for the film, with two or three options for the climax. He said he "didn't have the heart" to end the narrative on a sad note, considering the darkness Arjun was subjected to. The initial edit was 220 minutes long; this was reduced to 186 minutes.
Arjun and Preethi had an age difference of four years, which Vanga wanted to showcase effectively. He chose Shalini Pandey to play Preethi; she was pursuing a career in theatre in Jabalpur. Pandey's father was apprehensive of her signing a film contract; the shoot delayed by five months. Pandey was firm in her decision, which strained her relationship with her father. Vanga wanted her to dub for her role, to which she agreed because it would help her own the character completely. Vanga conducted an eight-day acting workshop with Deverakonda and Pandey. Kanchana was cast as Arjun's grandmother in November 2016; Arjun Reddy marked her comeback to Telugu cinema after Shri Datta Darshanam (1985). The producers persuaded her to join the project after a series of long discussions.
Rahul Ramakrishna, who worked as a lyricist for Pelli Choopulu, was cast as Arjun's friend Shiva. Ramakrishna's career as a journalist helped him understand several dialects, which in turn had a positive effect on his performance. He called Shiva's friendship with Arjun "loyal and unconditional", which gives them the liberty to deride each other at times. Amit Sharma was chosen after a three-hour audition; Vanga felt he "had the apt attitude and arrogance" for the role of Amit, Arjun's nemesis. Bhushan Kalyan played the role of the college's dean. Tulu actor Gopinath Bhat was cast as Preethi's father. Sanjay Swaroop, Kamal Kamaraju, Jia Sharma and Priyadarshi Pulikonda were cast in other important roles.
Nagesh Banell was initially the film's director of photography. He was replaced by Raj Thota later, who worked for 85% of the film. Deverakonda recommended him; he did the clash work for Pelli Choopulu whose cinematography was handled by Banell. Vanga worked on the film's sound design and worked with Sachin Hariharan of Sync Cinema. Harshavardhan Rameshwar composed the background score. Shashank Mali edited the film.
The principal photography was completed in 86 working days, and was made on a budget of 5–5.15 crore. Vanga preferred long, uninterrupted takes; the pre-Intermission sequence was seven minutes long. According to Deverakonda, if filmed in conventional style, Vanga would have finished the film in 200 working days. For a few scenes, Thota used a hand-held camera weighing , which adversely affected his hands. The classroom fight scene featuring Deverakonda, Pandey and Sharma was filmed in a single take; Sharma wanted Deverakonda to actually hit him to make the scene look natural. He said their experience in theatre helped their performances. The crew wanted to film the intermission scene, in which Arjun urinates in his pants, authentically but a delay in the shoot led to the insertion of a medical hosepipe in Deverakonda's trousers.
Days before the film's release, Indian National Congress party's Rajya Sabha member V. Hanumantha Rao tore promotional posters featuring the lead pair kissing each other that had been pasted on TSRTC buses. He found them objectionable and said they adversely affected the minds of young people. It led the film's promoters to remove such posters across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Arjun Reddy was released worldwide on 25 August 2017, notably clashing with Indian films Vivegam and A Gentleman. In Hyderabad, 55 paid premieres were held a day before the release, surpassing the record set by which had 33 premiere shows. The film's digital rights were acquired by Amazon Prime Video, which made it available online on the 50th day of theatrical release. Star Maa purchased the satellite rights for 3.5 crore. The film had its global television premiere on 21 January 2018, with a TRP rating of 13.6. The film was substantially edited for in its television premiere, drawing criticism from its audience.
In 2024, Vanga hinted at a possible release of the film's full version on its 10th anniversary.
By the end of its first week, the film grossed 34.3 crore and a distributor share of 18.5 crore, providing a return of nearly 200% to its distributors. After earning US$1,681,996 in 17 days in the US, Arjun Reddy became the fourth highest grossing Telugu film of the year in that country. By then, it had grossed a worldwide total of 45 crore and a distributor share of 25 crore. In its complete global theatrical run, Arjun Reddy grossed a total of 51 crore and earned a distributor share of 26 crore.
Indo-Asian News Service gave the film five stars out of five, called it the "most original, experimental and daring work to come out Telugu cinema in a long time", and said the protagonist's "rise, fall and rise ... is nothing short of poetic and heart wrenching". Neeshita Nyayapati gave the film four stars out of five and commented: "With Arjun Reddy, Sandeep Vanga has managed to tell a story that is seldom told, without sleaze or cheesy lines or over drama". Srivatsan of India Today also gave the film four stars out of five and wrote: "Lo and behold, Arjun Reddy—the film and Vijay Deverakonda, is something that the Telugu industry deserved in the first place", and praised the "brutal and honest" filmmaking. Suresh Kavirayani of Deccan Chronicle also gave the film four stars out of five and commended the performances and the filmmaking but was apprehensive of the second half's pace. The Times of India, also gave four stars stating "Arjun Reddy is the dawn of a new era of films for the Telugu film industry."
Hemanth Kumar, in his review for Firstpost gave 3.75 stars out of five and praised the storytelling in particular, saying: "There are no gimmicks, no surprises, no twists. And in doing so, we are forced to absorb the film at a more personal and subconscious level." Latha Srinivasan, in her review for NewsX, wrote that the protagonist is "unconventional, free-spirited and tries to break the shackles of traditional societal norms". She said the romance is "rooted in deep emotions" and gave the film 3.5 stars out of five. Giving three stars out of five, K. Naresh Kumar of The Hans India was critical of the film's pace and a few subplots in the second half. He wrote: "As a tale of a love-struck man, who falters and finally figures out what is best for him, the experiment that the director undertakes is tedious, stretching out time and again". Murali Krishna CH, in his review for the Cinema Express, praised the unpredictability of the first half but was apprehensive of some emotional scenes in the second half; he found them a "serious flaw" after the intermission.
In 2019, actress Parvathy criticised Arjun Reddy at a roundtable organised by Film Companion for glorifying misogyny, abuse and toxic masculinity in the films at International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Her comments against Arjun Reddy were met with widespread appreciation and criticism with many noting that she was brave enough to address the issue in front of Deverakonda. Later, Deverakonda criticised social media trollers during an interview for blowing the issue out of proportion while simultaneously emphasising on how much he respected Parvathy and her work. The main character was spoofed in the Malayalam film Super Sharanya.
| Zee Cine Awards Telugu | Best Actor | Vijay Deverakonda | ||
| Best Debut Actress | Shalini Pandey | |||
| 65th Filmfare Awards South | Best Film – Telugu | Bhadrakali Pictures - Arjun Reddy | ||
| Best Director – Telugu | Sandeep Vanga | |||
| Best Actor – Telugu | Vijay Deverakonda | |||
| Best Lyricist – Telugu | Shreshta (for "Madhurame") | |||
| Best Male Playback Singer – Telugu | L. V. Revanth (for "Teliseney Na Nuvvey") | |||
| Best Female Playback Singer – Telugu | Sameera Bharadwaj (for "Madhurame") | |||
| Sakshi Excellence Awards | Most Popular Actress of The Year | Shalini Pandey | ||
| 7th South Indian International Movie Awards | Best Director (Telugu) | Sandeep Vanga | ||
| Best Actor (Telugu) | Vijay Deverakonda | |||
| Best Comedian (Telugu) | Rahul Ramakrishna | |||
| Best Female Debut (Telugu) | Shalini Pandey | |||
| Best Debut Director (Telugu) | Sandeep Vanga | |||
| 16th Santosham Film Awards | Best Male Playback Singer | L. V. Revanth (for "Teliseney Na Nuvvey") | ||
| Zee Telugu | Debut Heroine of the Year | Shalini Pandey | ||
| Best Find of the Year | ||||
| 49th Cinegoers Awards | Best Debut Director | Sandeep Vanga | ||
| Best Youth Icon Hero | Vijay Deverakonda | |||
| Best Debut Comedian | Rahul Ramakrishna |
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