Readers Write In #822: The happy path

By Vikram MN

Films like these are a delight to write, let alone watch. I was intrigued by the film right from the time the teaser came out. It was fascinating and interesting at the same time, plus it did the important thing of setting the tone of the film. With Sasi Kumar at the helm I was afraid he’d overdo his bit, but that teaser gave me confidence that he’d be well within his limits, and so were every other actor. Not only was this film a feel-good film at heart but an acting master class too, what a casting this film had!

If you’re going to put such good actors, they can elevate even the simplest of stories. This film felt like an Indianized version of Iranian films where it always makes us wonder, where these actors come from. Just look at the range of M. S. Bhaskar and Elango Kumaravel, we should be truly blessed to see these people on screen and they’re the ones who’d not be fighting for screen space but just be part of the environment. I can’t really single out on these two because everybody else was fabulous too.

Talking about the tone of the film, Director Abishan was very clear in his boundaries, because we know what to feel right from scene one. Even though this film talks about a huge crisis, we know that it’s not going to go to a point where we would be loathing our mere existence. More than anyone I was really surprised to see that Sasikumar could keep up with his meter throughout the film. That’s fabulous acting. There are actors for whom we’d appreciate how great their acting skills was but only with very few people do we tend to forget that they’re actors at all. Simran did that in this film; she eased into the character. Look how well she underplayed it. Even in movies like ‘Vaaranam Aayiram’ or ‘Mahaan’ we could see she was acting, in spite of her being prolific in both. But here she was just Vasanthi and no one else.

Obviously, the hero of the film is Mulli (Kamalesh Jagan) who has all the heroic moments in the movie. It starts with his dog’s story, the dance post Nithu’s breakup (Mithun Jai Sankar) but his as well as the film’s greatest moment is when he says to his dad Das (M. Sasikumar) during Mangaiyarkarasi’s (Sreeja Ravi) funeral about how everyone is talking about him instead of her and how he’d replace the photo in the church. I couldn’t help but guffaw. There are people now boasting about theatre moments where people can’t sit in their seat for certain mass scenes but for me this is a scene where I’d have gotten up and clapped for this boy. Easily the best kid since ‘Super Deluxe’ Rasukutty (Ashwanth Ashokkumar)

It’s a shame that I didn’t watch this film in theatres, but it genuinely made me feel that I should have watched. It can partly be attributed to the fact that I’m at peace with my life and out of that OTT mogam to binge watch anything that’s remotely interesting and reserve theatre for only big films. But I don’t think I’ll ever come back to the phase where I could go to theatres without checking reviews about the movies.

Not only the main actors but every other actor too did their bit beautifully. And I felt that they genuinely looked beautiful, like without the glam. Mangaiyarkarasi, whom I don’t even feel like calling by her name, would be the effervescent aunty or paati, she looked like how she should have been for that character. Mithun is a treasure trove, even though I couldn’t take ‘Aavesham’ out of my mind and Yogalakshmi, how beautiful was she. In fact, she looked more Srilankan than any other. That scene in the terrace where she and Mithun talk was so warm, reminded me of the first teaser which came out for ‘Neethanae En Ponvasantham’ where I was “naan gaali’ed” by Samantha’s charm. But in this film when Kural (Yogalakshmi) tells Mithun how he had come “kadal thaandi” I was “naan gaali’ed” again. Generally I don’t like these kind of scenes but this was like ‘Before Sunrise’ record store level. That coming from me is the biggest compliment ever; I know my friends would acknowledge that. Because it comes out of nowhere, the shock in Mithun’s face and how nothing phenomenal happens post that is just icing on the cake.

Even though I had raved the film, I still had few problems, like how the only bad guy was a non Tamil guy (a super smart Prakash Raj look alike Ramkumar Prasanna, whom I already wrote a script for in my mind with him as ‘Kuruthipunal’ kind of hero), which was too convenient; I guess there is even a song which talks about Tamils, which was like meh! I was like, “why in this film?” The monologue by the alcohol addict didn’t work out because it should have been the most emotional scene of the movie, but the most emotional scene was already over, it was when the patti dies. Plus Das helping him out for ambulance should have been the actual transition, but he continues to be his usual self even post that. The “saptiya pa” scene was clever but not impactful. Even though I’m a Simran kanni and one of the reasons I watched the movie was because of the reel of her dancing for ‘Aal Thotta Boopathy’ I couldn’t help but think whether any film can be made without old film reference and finally, the poor dog, everyone were happy seeing it here but why none thought about its owner.