Mangalavaaram

Mangalavaaram (transl. Tuesday) is a 2023 Indian Telugu-language psychological mystery thriller film written and directed by Ajay Bhupathi.^[2] 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^[3] with cinematography by Dasaradhi Sivendra and editing by Madhav Kumar Gullapalli. The film released on 17 November 2023.^[4][5]

Set in October 1996, four strange suicides occur in the rural town of Mahalakshmipuram, with someone writing confessions of extramarital affairs between the victims on random walls every Tuesday. 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 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 sexually. She gets emotionally scarred when the professor marries his colleague. 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 by the village gossip.

These circumstances make Sailaja feel like 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 is assumed to be a suicide.

Viswanatham then reveals another truth concerning Sailaja's death to Maaya. Sailaja unintentionally discovered an extramarital affair between Prakasam's wife Rajeswari Devi and 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 extramarital affairs with each other plan to kill Sailaja after orchestrating a gossip around her. After getting her ostracized from the village, they kill her on a Tuesday night, ignoring her pleas.

After learning the facts, Vishwanatham teams up with Sailaja's childhood crush Ravi, who killed his father and pretended to be dead 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. It is revealed that 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 goddess Maalachamma for stopping the suicides. After observing the circumstances, Maaya closes the cases as suicides by believing that God will punish 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 did not tarnish his wife's name in front of the villagers, to which he explains that he did it to protect human values and morals, although he is an atheist himself. Viswanatham reveals that he and Ravi learnt of Sailaja's death from Puli, Kaasi Raju's blind assistant. Puli pretends to be blind for a living and witnesses Sailaja's murder. 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 extramarital 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 at a sequel.

Principal filming started on 9 December 2022, and the shoot was wrapped up on 13 June 2023.^[6]

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

It was released on 17 November 2023, with dubbed versions in four Indian languages:^[4][5] Mangalavaara in Kannada, Mangalavaar in Hindi, Chevvaikizhamai in Tamil and Chovvazhcha in Malayalam.^{[7][8][9][10]}

The film was premiered digitally on Disney Plus Hotstar on December 26, 2023 in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada & Malayalam languages. The film's Hindi dubbed version premiered on Zee Cinema on 9 August 2024 at 8:00 pm.^[11]

B. Ajaneesh Loknath composed both the music and background score for the film.^[13] The first single, Ganagana Mogalira, was released on 16 August 2023, followed by the second single, Emayyindho Emito, on 7 October.^[14] 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.^[15][16]

The background score was released on 4 January 2024.^[17]

• Mangalavaaram at IMDb