Anger Tales Review: An anthology of relatable stories

Anger Tales is an anthology of four stories or lives that were setup with relatability by the narrative style and common destination by the theme

By Kiran

Hyderabad: Anger Tales is the latest web series on Disney Plus Hotstar Telugu. Anger Tales is an anthology of four stories or lives that were setup with relatability by the narrative style and common destination by the theme. Strong casting for a few roles made it interesting for the Telugu audience before the release of the series. But what is the talk for the series after its release? Let us know about that in this review of Anger Tales from Telangana Today.

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Anger Tales Review:

Anger Tales has four stories in it, with some meaningful titles as per the content. The four episodes of the series were titled Benefit Show, Food Festival, An Afternoon Nap, and Helmet Head. Just by glancing at the titles, a viewer can easily understand that the stories are related to cinema, food, sleep, and safety/beauty. And that’s what the series primarily focuses on.

Benefit Show is all about the fan shows, held a day prior to the release of a star’s film. The episode has all the elements of fandom, stardom, release tensions, celebrations, and the reactions of the public. Venkatesh Maha is exceptional as the president of the fan club of a star. He is in the driver’s seat for the entire episode. What happens when a star hero’s film fails amid huge expectations from the fans and the audience? That’s exactly what the benefit show is about. The emotions of the fans, despite the star’s negligence in even noticing them, are very well conveyed in this episode. Suhas is an additional asset to this episode. The ending of the episode will be unacceptable, not even in the wildest dreams, particularly for the so-called die-hard fans. The final frame of this episode says it all.

Food Festival is the journey of a foodie whose life transforms from loving food to completely turning into a vegan and then later into a foodie again. This episode highlights two things in particular: restrictions and freedom. Madonna Sebastian is a housewife who gets restricted by her husband and her mother-in-law to eating only vegetarian food, despite her wish to try non-vegetarian food too. What happens when she chooses to go against her family is the rest of the narrative of the episode. Madonna and Tharun Bhascker are good with their screen presence. The idea of the episode is good, but the approach could be far better. Though the makers have focused on giving a woman a chance for freedom of expression, they have missed the strong emotions in this episode. But the transformation or the character arc are pretty satisfied with the final frame.

An Afternoon Nap is every housewife’s story. Usually the middle-class housewives have the practice of taking a short nap during the noon as they are strained with house duties right from the early morning. An Afternoon Nap episode revolves around this. Bindhu Madhavi is very well fitted into the clothes of a middle-class housewife, and she is the star of the episode. Bindhu Madhavi exposed different shades of her acting, as an innocent and decent wife, a struggling patient, and a frustrated tenant. The episode also has a glance at wife-husband and owner-tenant relations. An Afternoon Nap doesn’t look strong in its execution when compared to the first two episodes. Despite the director’s intention to show a higher level of anger than in the first two episodes, the ending appears ridiculous.

Helmet Head is what very young men relate to. It’s all about middle-class life, bachelorhood, and most importantly, hair loss. In fact, the director has framed the story for this episode with only these three elements as the key notes in the screenplay. One could show empathy for Giri’s struggles in life, but at the same time they feel like their empathy is not worth much. The makers have tried to infuse some emotion with Giri’s peddamma as the focus, which did not work up to the mark. As said earlier, the idea of hair loss is relatable, but connecting it with the lead actor’s life is not strong enough. The director might have approached it in a different way.

Apart from the writing and direction from Prabhala Tilak, there’s not much to talk about from the technical aspects. The production values are okay. The background score is neither unnoticed nor appreciable. The editing can be a lot better.

Anger Tales can be a one-time watch for the audience with relatable incidents and good performances, and most importantly, with less expectations.