Aa Ammayi Gurinchi Meeku Cheppali

Aa Ammayi Gurinchi Meeku Cheppali is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language romantic drama film written and directed by Mohana Krishna Indraganti and produced by Benchmark Studios and Mythri Movie Makers. The film starred Sudheer Babu and Krithi Shetty.

It was released on 16 September 2022 to mixed reviews and was a box office bomb. However, it got great exposure after it released on Amazon Prime Video for streaming. This is the second film in Indraganti's ' Cinema Trilogy after Sammohanam'' (2018). In one of his interviews, the director said this film a tribute to all of the commercial directors in Telugu Cinema.

Plot
Naveen is a very commercial film director in Telugu cinema who has just scored his 6th back-to-back hit and is looking to make a women centric film in a commercial format. After coming back from his producer Fancy Parameshwar's house a garbage truck dumps a bunch of trash onto his car. Naveen then finds an old container that has a film reel and decides to check. In the reel, Naveen finds scenes of a girl enacting and is mesmerized by it. He decides to find out who she is and learns that she is an eye doctor named Alekhya. Naveen decides to talk with Alekhya to get her to be a part of his film, but she starts to grow hatred towards him, as her family has a deep hatred for cinema people. One day, at an event for Alekhya's hospital, Naveen is invited as the chief guest and gives Alekhya a present. After the event, one of the couples present at the event tell Naveen how much his films had positively impacted their deceased son.

Alekhya is moved by the story and decides to open Naveen's gift. After reading what was inside the gift, Alekhya decides to visit Naveen at his house. Naveen then shows Alekhya the reel he found and she reveals that the person in the reel is not her, but is her deceased identical twin sister Akhila. Alekhya tells Naveen that Akhila was passionate about acting ever since she was a child, but their parents were against it as it would hurt their reputation in society, especially after Akhila's performance in a Romeo and Juliet play. Akhila started to act in a film directed by her friend Deepak. However during filming, Akhila's father pulled her out of the film and an enraged Akhila decided to leave the house. Akhila and Deepak later got married without her parents knowing and they disown her. Later, Deepak's producer and their family die in a car accident causing the film to be stalled completely, which makes Deepak to fall into depression. Due to the depression, Deepak committed suicide leaving Akhila distraught. Not being able to take this, Akhila also committed suicide by jumping off of her apartment building. Her family completely shuns cinema from there onwards.

Touched by Akhila's story, Naveen decides to write a story based on Akhila and Deepak's life and he pitches this idea to Venkat, who approves. Naveen visits Alekhya and tells her on how he wants Alekhya to play Akhila's character in his film. Alekhya is reluctant, but Naveen tells her his story about how as a debutant in the industry, once a producer offers a chance to direct but he had asked to mediate his former girlfriend for a casting couch in order to land a lead role and direction offer for him. Then, after hearing this she pressurized him to accept the offer. Unable to digest this he was about to commit suicide, but after seeing Deepak's death in the newspaper, Naveen gets motivated to make commercial films and to make money. He explains his sincere intention to actually make a good movie that gives a proper tribute to Akhila and Deepak. Alekhya eventually agrees to star in the film without her parents or her relatives knowing.

Alekhya and Naveen slowly fall in love with each other. Alekhya's parents introduce Alekhya to Varun, the scientist son of a family friend, and someone they desire to be Alekhya's husband. Varun actually ends up meeting Alekhya once more as he plays a minor role in Naveen's movie, though he eventually understands and is friendly about it. Everything goes smoothly until one of her relatives spots her. This enrages Alekhya's parents and Alekhya gets mad that they suppressed her sister and her emotions which led her to her death. She then decides to leave the house as her father believes a gossip circulated about her and Naveen. Alekhya decides to complete the film.

After the film is completed, Naveen approaches Alekhya's parents and tells them that he really made a sincere attempt at honoring Akhila and Deepak, and thinks they will be touched as well. He promises that if their perspectives doesn't changed, he will leave Alekhya forever doesn't release the film forever and never show his face to them. Thus, they show up to his film's premiere. Initially unfriendly, the movie begins to make them realize the mistakes they made. Naveen surprises them and tells them that he has included the shots from Akhila's reel in the film for some of the scenes and they emotionally break down. Finally in the climax he made the story a successful one by founding new producer to make his film who is "Fancy" Parmeshwar (by giving credit to him for approving his current film and who believed him at his earlier stage) by adding his life story and ended his film became a huge hit and Akhila receives a Filmfare Award and dedicates it to her parents. After watching the film they tell Naveen and Alekhya that they are proud of both of them for the film and for giving a proper tribute to both Deepak and Akhila. Then Naveen and Alekhya make their relationship official.

Cast

 * Sudheer Babu as Naveen
 * Krithi Shetty in a dual role as Dr. Alekhya who hates films and her twin sister Akhila, who is an aspiring actress.
 * Srikanth Iyengar as Manohar, Alekhya and Akhila's father
 * Kalyani Natarajan as Sumithra, Alekhya and Akhila's mother
 * Srinivas Avasarala as Dr. Varun
 * Vennela Kishore as Bose, AD to Naveen
 * Rahul Ramakrishna as Venkat, a writer and Lecturer at Government college who is the best friend of Naveen and always motivates him.
 * Viswant Duddumpudi as Deepak, an aspiring director, Akhila's boyfriend later husband.
 * Srinivas as "Fancy" Parameshwar.
 * Thalaivasal Vijay as Dr. James Kutty, Alekhya’s boss and being a Malayali an ardent fan of Telugu commercial films.
 * Kunal Kaushik as reel Deepak
 * Satish Saripalli
 * Vamsi Raghava Yenumula
 * Goparaju Ramana

Production
In November 2020, it was announced that Sudheer Babu and Mohana Krishna Indraganti were coming together for the third time under the tentative title #Sudheer14 after Sammohanam (2018) and V (2020). In March 2021 the film's title was announced as Aa Ammayi Gurinchi Meeku Cheppali.

It was announced in January 2021 that Krithi Shetty was brought on board for the lead female role in the film.

The principal photography of the film began on 1 March 2021.

Soundtrack
The film score and soundtrack of the film is composed by Vivek Sagar. The music rights were acquired by Saregama.

Reception
Sangeetha Devi of The Hindu wrote about the film as "Earnest and fairly engaging ode to cinema". Neeshita Nyayapati of The Times of India rated the film 3 out of 5 stars and wrote "AAGMC is not a perfect film by any means because there are scenes you wish would've been written better and conversations that delve deeper". Pinkvilla rated the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote "Themes such as overcoming pangs of guilt, self-redemption, living someone's dream, and finding peace in defying conventions, are drowned out by many below-ordinary scenes. The Hans India rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote "The patchy writing doesn't elevate the proceedings. An inconsistency is felt, and that's where Aa Ammayi Gurinchi Meeku Cheppali falters." Sakshi Post rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and opined that the film offers nothing new.