Telugu cinema has delivered countless emotional and deeply moving love stories over the years. Some remain memorable because of how they start, others because of how they conclude. But the rare ones that truly stay with us are remembered for everything in between — the stolen looks, silly disagreements, unexpected laughter, long conversations, uncomfortable silences and little moments that slowly turn into cherished memories.
Aditya Hasan’s Epic – The First Semester, a direct continuation of the popular 2024 web series 90's A Middle Class Biopic, is built almost entirely around these small fragments. Rather than presenting a conventional romance with a clear beginning and ending, the film resembles a scrapbook documenting a relationship in all its tenderness, confusion and imperfections. It feels like a collection of moments woven into a relationship that seems experienced rather than manufactured. Some moments are fresh, others have lost some of their shine, and a few feel slightly out of place. Yet together, they capture the beautifully imperfect nature of young love.
Hasan is more concerned with capturing the emotional experience of a relationship than presenting an idealised version of romance. The film follows Aditya, played by Anand Deverakonda, a gentle middle-class young man from Wanaparthy who travels to London for higher education. An aspiring filmmaker carrying the expectations of his family, he meets Kadali, played by Vaishnavi Chaitanya, and their initially unusual connection gradually develops into something far more complicated.
The airport farewell is among the film’s most understated successes. A young man from a small town leaves his home for the first time, while his parents surround him with advice they know he probably will not remember. The family attempts to maintain their composure even as the separation quietly breaks them. The scene effectively establishes the emotional tone of the story that follows.
Hasan’s strongest quality is his distinctive personal voice. Several elements connected to Aditya’s filmmaking ambitions, including the “Epic” label on the clapboard in his room and the screenplay he is developing, suggest that the director has incorporated parts of his own experiences into the character. Familiar details such as Tupperware containers and homemade pickles create a sense of recognition, while smaller touches — like having dinner while watching an old Venkatesh movie — make the world feel culturally specific rather than interchangeable.
The film works particularly well when it portrays intimacy without exaggerating it. In one scene, Kadali tells Aditya that she has back pain and simply wants him to stay close to her. The moment becomes a thoughtful depiction of a young man gradually learning how to understand his partner’s discomfort. In another sequence, an old SP Balasubrahmanyam song prompts Kadali to suggest that Aditya, as a filmmaker, should create their own background score. This gives Hesham Abdul Wahab’s music an organic role within the narrative, while the retro songs contribute to the nostalgic atmosphere without overpowering the story.
Some of the most affecting scenes are also the simplest. Sivaji, playing Aditya’s father, quietly enters his son’s empty room after Aditya leaves for the UK, silently expressing how much he misses him. That moment is beautifully mirrored near the climax, when the father quietly comes to terms with his son’s unconventional decisions. Between these two scenes comes the film’s emotional centrepiece: a difficult discussion about money, sacrifice and the future, in which Sivaji delivers one of the film’s most impactful performances.
Vaishnavi Chaitanya is arguably the film’s biggest strength. Her portrayal gives Kadali an emotional unpredictability that keeps the relationship engaging even when the screenplay begins to drift. She is affectionate, impulsive, challenging and vulnerable, often contradictory without being reduced to any one characteristic.
Anand Deverakonda takes on a much softer role than the intense character he played in Baby. His quieter scenes are effective, especially when Aditya simply observes the people around him. However, his portrayal of shyness occasionally becomes excessive. After an important intimate moment between the couple, Kadali asks why he is behaving strangely, and he admits that he is simply shy. While the scene successfully conveys the innocent awkwardness of experiencing intimacy for the first time, Deverakonda pushes the reaction so far that it begins to feel acted rather than spontaneous. A subtler performance could have made Aditya’s awkwardness more charming.
Kalyan Shankar, playing Aditya’s friend, provides much of the comic relief. One particular scene initially appears to be a humorous reaction to an important piece of news before unexpectedly turning emotional.
However, the film does not always maintain the same level of effectiveness. With a runtime approaching two and a half hours, the middle portion can feel unnecessarily prolonged, especially during the lengthy conversations between Aditya and Kadali after their relationship is firmly established. The problem is not that the film spends too much time on conversations, since those discussions are an important part of its appeal. Rather, several conversations return to the same doubts and uncertainties without introducing enough emotional or dramatic progression. A tighter edit could have retained the film’s relaxed intimacy while making its major turning points more powerful.
The film’s most noticeable misstep comes during a scene in which Kadali lashes out and damages furniture in her room. The sequence is so dramatically heightened that it briefly feels like something from a Hollywood psychological obsession thriller rather than the film surrounding it. Although the narrative later provides context for her behaviour, the scene still feels somewhat disconnected from the overall tone.
Epic – The First Semester does not quite become the grand romance suggested by its title. Instead, it finds its strength in something smaller and, at its best, more emotionally resonant: a collection of memories, disagreements, songs, conversations and silences that portrays young love as a series of ordinary moments gradually becoming a shared life. Not every moment works equally well, but enough of them are beautiful to make the entire collection worth holding on to.
