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Director: Gautham Vasudev Menon It all starts with Karthik struggling with writer's block. As his mind longs for Jessi's presence, his hand dials her number, hoping she would bring him out of this abyss. What should have followed is an epilogue to the original film or a prelude to a sequel. However, what I saw was a procedural event. To begin with, the writer's block was treated at surface level without any heft. Just because you write heroine intro scene as her brushing her teeth (Raja Rani) you cannot lose hope in life and take drastic decisions. Once the phone conversation begins, it goes into confession mode listing out every detail the audience needs to know about the life of this couple in the past 10 years. It is of course interlaced with the GVM must-haves such as self-deprecating humour, throwbacks to his successful films, and Mani Ratnam; all in now-intolerable staccato.  When I took a step back, recounting events in the form of confessions inherently is a highly ...

Director: Mani Ratnam In the poem ‘Kaatru Veliyidai Kannama’, the poet describes the beauty of kannama, how it mesmerizes the lover, captivates him to his core and becomes the torch for the darkness within and around him. VC, the protagonist of the film, Kaatru Veliyidai, takes off from the poem in spirit. He is mesmerized by the mere presence of Leela. Such is the power of Leela that the moment she lights a torch into the eyes of VC, the player gets play ed by the ethereal aura of the rightfully named Leela. Mani Ratnam, here seems to be more interested in interpreting the poem in its various facades. He starts off this ambitious vision with self-indulgence.  Thus, VC, who gets mesmerized by the beauty of Leela, wants her to be his anchor, the human embodiment of his poetry, the breeze that comes along with the air that surrounds him and ultimately the light to the darkness within. No wonder Mani makes the protagonist apologize through a poem, reminisce her through the ...

He made a furtive glance; she gave an approving smile. Love spread as elegantly as the widening smile of her lips.  He would say I am not a fool to wait for you for hours together; she would say sorry for making you wait. Love knows the words between the pauses. She would say I am staying away from you for some days; he wouldn't say anything; but goes away with a smile, enjoying the pain that he is getting due to the separation. Love truly went mad.   If you got bored just imagining what that would look like on screen, the movie OK Kanmani and this opinion piece is not the place for you to be in. OK Kanmani, as you sensed from the treatment above, is a typical Mani Ratnam film, filled with his patented strokes of artistry on a  bright canvas setup by PC Sreeram, Rahman and others. It isn't a film that is cluttered with novel ideas or an unique treatment. But what sets it apart is the ingenuity it poses in saying differently what was already said in...

Director: Gautham Vasudev Menon How many times as a kid, have you stood in glee with a piece of scribbled paper in front of your parents/people you looked up to? The satisfaction that you would have felt in your face comes from the gratification in producing something straight from your heart. But are products that come out of passion (at whim though) good? Certainly not. Quality can be an act of luck which clicks for you or the area where you ventured would have been something that you are naturally gifted at. But when things fail to please; especially when it comes from your heart, it only means you have been lackadaisical in not rethinking against the flow. In films we can term that as sluggish writing. But isn’t that too harsh a word for something that was approached with so much gusto? Will you break the news like that when your kid shows you an incompetent work? You tell them to work on it and improve the substance. Gautham the kid here, unsure as he honestly accepts, has bro...

Director: Gautham Vasudev Menon Karthik starts his film explaining with philosophical mindset about the girl he happened to meet and his journey with her, but only at the end of Gautham’s film do we get to know that he has not tried to understand his girl, rather he has gotten used to her. Call it male chauvinism or not, Gautham has created a mature character named Karthik, a guy who could empathize this girl Jessi whilst not forgoing his prestige even for her; at the expense of making her mad (in Karthik’s words) and elder to her, ridiculing the fact (?) that girls are more mature than guy’s of their age. Starting from Jessi mouthing “mannipaya” whenever chance arises (even though that’s the theme song and not VTV) till making her speaks lines which any guy will want a girl to speak & lines which they would have seen girls speak but never understood, Gautham has potrayed Jessi as what a guy considers to be the complex mind of the girl and there in lies the only flaw of this well...

Mission accompolished! Published in Nxg - The Hindu Director: Gautham Gautham proves with this film that even with a poor screenplay you can make a lovable film if you are sincere in what you want to convey. Leave the fact that the film doesn't have a flow, leave the fact that emotions are conveyed through words rather than visuals and get ready to be swept off your feet by the examples set by daddy as to how a dad should be. Story-wise the film is basically the recollection of memories of Suriya, exploring various stages of his life, where his dad has helped him move ahead after he learns that his father has passed away. It is accepted that Suriya is only recollecting various incidents in his life, but while narrating, the seamless flow that is required is missing; result the film doesn't show anything more than what was shown in the trailer. It is disheartening to see the most important sequences in the film being handled amateurishly. Example- the k...