Mangalavaaram

Mangalavaaram is a 2023 Indian Telugu-language psychological mystery thriller film written and directed by Ajay Bhupathi. It is produced by Swathi Reddy Gunupati, Suresh Varma M., and Ajay Bhupathi, under Mudhra Media Works and A Creative Works. The film features an ensemble cast including Payal Rajput, Nandita Swetha, Priyadarshi Pulikonda, Divya Pillai, Ajmal Ameer, Chaitanya Krishna, and Ravindra Vijay.

The music was composed by B. Ajaneesh Loknath with cinematography by Dasaradhi Sivendra and editing by Madhav Kumar Gullapalli. The film released on 17 November 2023.

Plot
Set in 1996, four strange suicides occur in the rural town of Mahalakshmipuram, with someone writing confessions of illicit affairs between victims on random walls. Although everything appears to be fine in the village, there is a lot of conflict among the locals. The newly assigned SI Maaya begins investigating the suicides and realizes that they are murders. As the investigation progresses, she soon finds a link between the deaths and RMP Viswanatham, a kindhearted man. When she catches him red-handed writing a confession on a wall, they both have a minor scuffle in which he manages to subdue and tie her up in his backyard.

Maaya manages to break free and confronts him about his relationship with a woman named Sailaja, to which, he admits that Sailaja was a genuine victim of sexual abuse owing to her hormonal imbalance, which causes her to lose control over her sexual desires. While pursuing her degree, she falls for her English lecturer, Madan, who pretends to reciprocate her love to exploit her physically. She gets emotionally scarred when the professor marries his colleague from the college. Due to these circumstances, she loses control of her sexual desires, forcing her to make rash judgments and engage in sex with random men in the village. One night, Viswanatham accidentally meets her, and after knowing her situation, he decides to take care of her like his late daughter while not being bothered about the villager's gossip.

These circumstances make Sailaja feel to be an immoral woman among those around her, who then beat her up forcing her to leave the village by orders of Prakasam Babu, the arrogant Zamindar of the village. Following these incidents, Sailaja's body is discovered in a well, and it was assumed to be a suicide.

Viswanatham then reveals another truth concerning Sailaja's death to Maaya. Sailaja unintentionally discovered an illicit affair between Prakasam's wife Rajeswari Devi and a photographer Vasu. Rajeswari, having a good reputation in the village, is concerned that Sailaja might reveal their affair to the villagers. Hence, Rajeswari and Vasu, along with four other people who have illicit affairs with each other, are planning to kill Sailaja after orchestrating a gossip around her. After getting her ostracized from the village, they kill her, ignoring her pleas.

After knowing the facts, Vishwanatham, along with Ravi, Sailaja's childhood crush, who killed his father pretended to be dead to the villagers by staging a fire accident for abusing Sailaja. Later, he changes his identity to live as a graveyard keeper, who avenges Sailaja's death by killing the six people responsible for her murder. Before Sailaja's death, Ravi meets her on the insistence of Viswanatham and both convince Sailaja to marry Ravi. However, Prakasam overhears their conversation and goes to confront his wife. First feigning ignorance, she later stabs him, who then pushes her off the terrace and immolates her using kerosene and stages it as a sacrifice by herself to their village god Maalachamma for stopping the suicides. After observing the circumstances, Maaya closes the cases as suicides by believing that God will punish the men's sins only through other men, not take births as an avatar.

Later in a private talk with Viswanatham, Prakasam confesses that he killed his wife to punish her for betrayal and killing an innocent person. Viswanatham questions Prakasam about why he made his wife good in front of the villagers, for which he explains that he did it to protect the human values and morals, although being an atheist himself. Then Viswanatham reveals that he and Ravi got to know about Sailaja's death through Puli, Kaasi Raju's blind assistant in a gossiping gang. Actually, Puli acts as blind for a living, witnesses Rajeswari Devi and her gang killing Sailaja. Finally, the film ends with Ravi killing Vasu and committing suicide in the same well where Sailaja had been murdered.

In a mid-credits scene, there are many confessions noted regarding illicit affairs in the other villages that create tension in those areas. Then, it is shown that Sailaja and Ravi's ghosts are in the same well where they had died, which hints towards a sequel.

Cast

 * Nandita Swetha as SI Maaya
 * Payal Rajput as Sailaja "Sailu"
 * Baby Shaurya as Young Sailu
 * Priyadarshi Pulikonda as Ravi
 * Unknown as Young Ravi
 * Divya Pillai as Rajeswari Devi, Prakasam Babu's wife
 * Chaitanya Krishna as Zamindar Prakasam Babu
 * Ajmal Ameer as Madan (cameo)
 * Ravindra Vijay as RMP Viswanatham
 * Ajay Ghosh as Kaasi Raju
 * Shravan Reddy as Vasu, photographer and Rajeswari's lover
 * Lakshman as Puli 'Guddodu', Kaasi Raju's assistant
 * Rahul Varma as Nani
 * Srilekha Rajendran as Sooramma, Sailu's grandmother
 * Ananth Prabu as Sailaja's father
 * Sritej as Guraja
 * Thanmai Bolt as Nagamani
 * Tharun Bhascker in a special appearance in the song "Appadappada Thaandra"

Development
Principal filming started on 9 December 2022, and the shoot was wrapped up on 13 June 2023.

Payal Rajput played the principal lead in the film, marking her second collaboration with Ajay Bhupathi, after RX 100.

Theatrical
It was released on 17 November 2023, with dubbed versions in four Indian languages: Mangalavaara in Kannada, Mangalavaar in Hindi, Chevvaikizhamai in Tamil and  Chovvazhcha in Malayalam.

Home media
The film was digitally premiered on Disney Plus Hotstar from December 26, 2023 in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada & Malayalam languages.

Music
B. Ajaneesh Loknath composed both the music and background score for the film. The first single, Ganagana Mogalira, was released on 16 August 2023, followed by the second single, Emayyindho Emito, on 7 October. The third single, Appadappada Thaandra, featuring Tharun Bhascker in a cameo appearance, was released on 3 November, and was featured during the end credits of the film.

Background score
The background score was released on 4 January 2024.