Actors Rashmika Mandanna and Vijay Deverakonda tied the knot on February 26 in Udaipur. The makers of their upcoming film, Ranabaali, shared a new poster featuring the actors dressed in period outfits. As the poster received criticism for looking ‘odd’, director Rahul Sankrityan and Reddit explain why it isn’t. (Also Read: Rashmika Mandanna grooves on flight after wedding to Vijay Deverakonda; internet surprised they’re in economy)
Ranabaali wedding poster with Vijay Deverakonda, Rashmika Mandanna
Rahul and the team of Ranabaali shared a new poster from the film on Saturday, writing, “Time is trapped in this picture. JAYAMMA & RANABAALI- the cutest they can get. LOVE IS VINTAGE. #Ranabaali.” In the poster, Vijay is seen dressed in a pancha (dhoti) and angavastram (shawl), with his leg folded and a stern expression on his face. Rashmika can be seen dressed near him in a pattu (silk) saree and wedding finery, with one leg up and a serious look on her face. As soon as the poster was released, people commented that their expressions looked ‘odd’ while others commented on their poses.
Rahul Sankrityan explains story behind Ranabaali poster
On Sunday, Rahul shared the poster on his social media, along with a few other pictures taken years ago. Ranabaali is set in 1854 and 1878, and he explained why Vijay and Rashmika were posed like that. “But this wasn’t designed as a “poster.” It was a moment. I’ve always been fascinated by old photographs — our parents, grandparents… the way they stood before a camera. No posing. No rehearsed smiles. No anxiety about how it would look. Just truth. Just presence,” he wrote.
He also added that the late 1800s were ‘glamorous’ but ‘harsh, grounded, deeply rooted in soil and survival’. “But within that world, marriages carried dignity. Weight. Permanence,” wrote Rahul, adding, “The day Vijay and Rashmika came to set in wedding costume, something shifted. They didn’t look like actors playing dress-up. They looked like they had travelled through time. It was instinct. I asked for a simple backdrop. No dramatic lighting. No stylised posing. Just stillness. And we captured it.”
The director even wrote about how Vijay and Rashmika slipped into their roles, writing, “What moved me most was how both of them slipped into the moment, controlled Time and make it happen. Like a memory pulled from their forgotten trunk. And when it aligns with their real wedding- it feels surreal. Sometimes cinema and life nod at each other. That timelessness — that nostalgia — is one of the strongest pillars of RANABAALI. Some bonds are eternal. And sometimes, I feel this is their marriage picture from their past lives.”
Reddit defends Ranabaali poster
Fans on Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) also defended the poster. One X user wrote, “The ones trolling their expressions, look how similar the images are,” posting an old picture of a couple posing similarly.
A Redditor wrote, “For those who thought the Ranabaali poster looked odd/ai. These are some of the vintage photos of Indians taken from the black n white era, the reason it looks odd is mainly due to longer exposure time so that the person who’s getting photographed is adviced to pose in either a stiff posture like VD (usually men are adviced to do so) or a casual one or a more feminine one like Rashmika (yet they shouldn’t move much), this is also the reason why the expressions looks neutral/odd because they can’t be smiling and maintaining the same smile for several minutes.”
One Redditor even commented, “They are trying something new in posters… This looks kind of refreshing in posters…. Still people are complaining,” and another claimed, “Put Vijay or Rashmika in anything, people will just start complaining unfortunately.” A person wrote, “i have photos of my great grandmothers looking like that in photos. Rashmika nailed the look. don’t know about vijay’s look as I don’t have any reference for that.
Ranabaali is Vijay and Rashmika’s third film after Geetha Govindam (2018) and Dear Comrade (2019), and their first after marriage.
