Saravanan Irukka Bayamaen (சரவணன் இருக்க பயமேன்) is supposed to be a rom-com. Saravanan (Udayanidhi) is a jobless youth living in a small town, his relative girl Thenmozhi (Regina Cassandra) who left the town during their school days returns and Saravanan falls in love with her while she has no interest in him. Saravanan seeks the help of the spirit of his dead girlfriend Fathima (Srushti Dange) who possesses Thenmozhi to get her convinced. If cheating a girl and risking her life by playing with spirits is not absurd enough, the entire film is a string of it. Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised as this film is made by the same Director (Ezhil) who made Velainu Vandhutta Vellaikaaran (2016).

Watching this film was a waste of my time.

I saw this film “Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017)” in Amazon Prime Video today. Starring Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt it’s a typical Bollywood Rom-Com.

Badri (Varun Dhawan) is a care free son of a rich family in Jhansi, UP who is afraid to speak up to his father, a money lender & businessman. Vaidehi (Alia Bhatt) is the young daughter from a middle-class family from Kota, Rajasthan; Vaidehi has big aspirations for her career to become an air hostess. After seeing her in a friend’s wedding Badri falls in love with Vaidehi who brushes him away. Later she agrees to marry Badri if he gets an alliance for her elder sister, which he does. On the wedding day Vaidehi runs away to Mumbai and then to Singapore – it is Singapore so that the next one hour of the film, we get to see the city state. Badri follows her to Vaidehi, they both feel for each other, finally, get married and live happily ever after. As expected in the climax, there is a big dialogue by Badri to his father on why freedom and career for Women are important and parents should listen to the wishes of their children.

The entire film goes along in expected lines with no real surprises, yet it was watchable due to decent acting by Varun & Alia.

Taramani (2017) by Director Ram was a film that has been in making for a few years now, much anticipated as a result. It is supposed to be about the story of people living in the IT hub of Chennai – OMR & Taramani area.

The first scene we see is a vast green cover with plenty of water bodies; you hear Director Ram‘s voice over introducing the area to be Taramani in Chennai of yesteryears. This sets the tone of the film, the voiceovers continue throughout the film which Director Ram says is analogous to a status updates in social media. Let me give you an example of one such update – Thieves are those who steal from you; Police are those who steal from thieves; Hospitals are those who steal both from thieves and police without any reservation. Another example is a statutory warning message like the one which says Whatsapp messages and flirts can be dangerous.

On a rainy day, Andrea Jeremiah takes shelter in a dilapidated bus stand where she encounters a stranger – who is debutant Vasanth Ravi. The stranger narrates his failed love story. On the following days and months, Andrea and Vasanth fall in love, start living together and then break up. In between this, we pass by multiple social evils from Sexual Harassment of Women in the workplace, indiscriminate destruction of water bodies, flirting that can be life-threatening, Indo-Sri Lanka Fisherman arrests, Demonetization and Transgender rights. Where the Director has succeeded is by having an underlying love-thread that keeps it all going and watchable.

The attention to detail by Director is noticeable throughout the film – in the casting of the young boy who has a resemblance to his father; the house that Andrea rents out from her friend is shown unkempt and sparingly furnished; the living quarters of the Railway policeman; and so on. Background score by Yuvan Shankar Raja (who happened to be seeing the film with his family few rows behind me in Luxe Cinemas) is a plus for the film. Both Andrea and Vasanth have done their roles perfectly.

I would’ve enjoyed the film more if the editor had trimmed the film by about 20 minutes in the second half. Otherwise, Taramani is a good watch to understand the contemporary youth in Chennai.

Southern Cross aka Cruz Del Sur (2012) was screened as part of Spanish Film Festival in Chennai organised by ICAF and Cinema Republic, Spain.

The film is about a middle-aged man (Juan) living in Montevideo, Uruguay with his lovely wife, a cute daughter and his caring father who runs a local bakery. Juan loses his job as a Sales manager in a lab, goes in search of a suitable job to Barcelona, Spain. His cousin living there leaves him to fend for himself in a hotel on the first day of his arrival to the foreign country. Juan struggles with settling down in a new city & new country, and living for months without a job; the only thing that makes it easy for him is the language (Spanish). Luckily he meets a bartender Mariano, a friendly chap from Argentina living in Barcelona for years; Juan becomes friends with Mariano and his colleague Julia, who takes Juan around Barcelona. What happens next?. Does he make a career and settle down in Barcelona or returns to Uruguay is rest of the story.

The film directed and acted by David Sanz as Juan is a focussed story-telling, it revolves around Juan’s character, his struggles and likings. The biggest for this simple storyline was the apt casting. Excellent acting by Jorge Temponi who comes as Juan’s friend Mariano. The lovely Leonor Svarcas has been given only a little screen time, she has given a passionate performance. Zaida Fornieles as Julia has done a good job for her role.

David Sanz and Leonor Svarcas in Cruz del Sur (2012)

Arjun Reddy (2017) is a Telugu film starring Vijay Deverakonda that has become a super hit even with the Tamil speaking audience in Chennai. I watched it with English subtitles yesterday in Satyam Cinemas. 

The story is about a talented medical student, who falls in love with a girl junior to him in college, their fallout and his drug addiction as a result. The film is squarely about Vijay‘s character as Arjun Reddy, which he has performed brilliantly. He has shown good contrast between being a lover boy in the flashback and has a surgeon battling addiction. Heroine Shalini Pandey, fits the role as Preethi, a junior student who gradually falls in love with Arjun. When Arjun storms out of Preethi’s house after her father insults him, Preethi pleads with him to calm down – great performance Shalini, unbelievable it is her first film.

Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga should be appreciated for maintaining the intensity of the story throughout the screenplay. The background score by Radhan adds the necessary support.

This is a long film running over 3 hours, so please have the necessary patience. I understand it was necessary to show the hero smoking and drinking but it could’ve been a bit less and not glorified as it was done in the film.

Tamara (2016), a French comedy film that is about the growing up crush of a teenage girl by the same name. “Tamara” (aged 15) is living with her single mother, it is her first day in high school, and tough to adjust with new classmates – who makes fun of her for being “fat”, a fact she herself feels very conscious of. The hottest boy in the class called “Diego” sits next to Tamara and eventually they get into a relationship, then to fall out due to a misunderstanding. Did they get back is what the film is about? It gets told with a dose of comedy and realism, which made the film fun to watch. At 103 minutes, it was the correct running time for the story.

The actress (Héloïse Martin) who comes as Tamara is a good cast for the role, she is round & bubbly yet attractive.  The dynamics in the house of Tamara – with herself, her single mother, mother’s boyfriend, and, his young daughter gets shown nicely. The young girl steals our heart with her cute performance, especially when she helps Tamara to break the ice with Diego. Tamara’s mother is paranoid about her daughter going wrong ways, she installs a spy software to monitor every conversation of Tamara – her reaction when she gets to read an intimate message between Tamara and Diego was hilarious. I liked the scene where the mother and daughter bond together – talking, crying and share an ice-cream after they had broken up with their respective boyfriends. When Tamara’s father calls to chastise her for lying to him & sleeping with her boyfriend, she bursts out – listing all the moments in her life where she missed him – turning the conversation upset down.

Though Tamara has a common story and nothing new, it was easy-going and cheerful – I liked it.

Héloïse Martin as Tamara, and, Rayane Bensetti as Diego in Tamara (2016), a French film

There are films which make you sit up, one such film is Nimir (2018). The film is a remake of Malayalam Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016), which won National Award for Original Screenplay – the pedigree is obvious on every scene, as the movie was void of Kollywood’s overplay. I liked this film.

Udayanidhi Stalin as Selvam, a wedding photographer in a small town has done his role well – he has grown up as an actor and certainly knows how to select his script. Parvatii Nair appears as his childhood sweetheart Valli. In the first scene, Selvam jumps into the river with his slippers in hand for a swim, that was shown tastefully in Black ‘n’ White – you realise the movie’s cinematography is going to be impressive – and N. K. Ekambaram delivers just that, every scene was a delight to watch. And the slipper ends up playing a ‘key’ part in the film. Namitha Pramod has got a bold role, yet she appears pleasing – her eyes and smile reminds of actress Seetha. 

Throughout the film, the dialogues are short and natural. One example: Valli’s father comes to Selvam’s house, hands over his cell phone and asks him to discuss with his daughter to arrive at a pragmatic decision, we get impressed – he behaves, unlike any other Tamil film heroine’s father, who typically come screaming and accompanied by hitmen.

Overall, the story was a familiar small-town love(s) story with the simplest plot – yet by its the treatment, it stands out.

Naachiyaar (2018) is a different type of film from Director Bala. It is about a teenage love and an honest police officer. Naachiyaar IPS (played by Jyothika) is investigating a rape case, where both the victim and the accused are under-age, requiring it be handled with care. Appearing as the young labourer G. V. Prakash Kumar has given an outstanding performance, matching him is the actress Ivana – a good find for Kollywood. Jyothika has excelled in the cell torture scenes.

The plot comes out weak, everything happens conveniently for the director. The film had a bit of resemblance to Vazhakku Enn 18/9 (2012). Considering it’s a film by Bala I was looking for a deep social message – there was none to be found. The usuals, wealthy and the corrupt are shown in poor light, that’s it.

இவான் மற்றும் ஜி.வி.பிரகாஷ் – நாச்சியார் (2018)

I had missed seeing this film when it came out five years ago – I was reminded of it when the film’s Director R S Prasanna spoke about it in the recent TEDxChennai 2018 event.

Kalyana Samayal Saadham (2013) was certainly a bold film – for a debut director to talk about male impotence in Kollywood takes a lot of conviction. The director deserves a big applause for that, along with him the hero of the film the actor Prasanna has to be appreciated for doing the role – in an industry that is all about the reel “image” and sentiment I think this was a big deal.

The film can be watched on an (official) channel here

Having made the character introduction and revealing the plot the screenplay should have gone to top gear, instead, the film lingers – till it had to rescued by the father-in-law character (played by veteran Delhi Ganesh). With the Doctor character played by comedy king “Crazy Mohan“, an opportunity to shoot high on the humour quotient was wasted. With a theme like this, it is easy to make a film that is sensual and vulgar, but the Director treats it only through the dialogues – that abstinence (pun intended) is what makes the film enjoyable – allowing him to communicate a social message subtly.

Lekha Washington and Prasanna

If you wish, you can check out the Hindi remake of the film – Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (2017) made by the same director.

It is unfortunate, but Vikram Prabhu continues to disappoint with the selection of his films. Pakka (2018) is another film of the actor, that I wish I didn’t waste my time on. The film was a disaster at all levels – story, background music and comedy, even though it has Suri and Sathish.

The story is about two Vikram Prabhu, playing double action – for one the heroine is Bindu Madhavi and for the other it is Nikki Galrani – the film is about each couple falling in love, unimpressive in both the instances to say the least. 90% of the film happens in village temple festivals.

Seeing this film, I just wish Tamil Film Producers Association had continued it strike for few more months – I would’ve enjoyed “better” films made in Malayalam & Telugu.

Bindhu Madhavi, Vikram Prabhu – Pakka (2018)

Bombay Summer (2009) is a film about 3 friends Geetha, Jaidev and Madan hailing from different backgrounds. Geetha is a manager in a creative agency, who identifies a freelance designer and photographer Madan for a book cover project she is working on, and Jaidev is a writer who is in a romantic relationship with Geetha.

Director Joseph Mathew has captured well the everyday life of the three, happening in the rich and the poor parts of Bombay City. The first half of the film goes along rather dull but is saved due to the natural acting of Tannishtha Chatterjee, as Geetha, she carries the film entirely on her shoulder –  it is in the last 30 minutes some kind of story happens when a triangular love comes into play, just before the climax. 

Available on Amazon India Prime Video

Thanks to OTT providers like Amazon Prime and Netflix, films that break the stereotype of Bollywood are being made in India. One such recent film is Netflix’s Lust Stories (2018). The anthology film which has four stories, as the title suggests, all of them are about intimacy issues that are outside the societal norms, by itself the topics handled are not uncommon in Indian films but their treatment and being told from the individual women’s perspective is certainly new to the Indian audience. Netflix and all the four director’s including Karan Johar have to be appreciated for doing this project.

The first one, starring Radhika Apte as a married college professor is the most daring story out of the four in the film. It is about her character’s obsession with her male student after a one-night stand, normally this type of story is told with the gender roles reversed – Radhika Apte has brought out the eccentric nature of her character very well, making it a pleasure to watch.

The second one starring Bhumi Pednekar, who works as a maidservant for a bachelor in Mumbai who gets intimate. It is about her feelings which she does a good job of hiding when learning of his upcoming marriage. There are hardly any dialogues spoken between the lead pair in the film, making the feelings they go through a lot more intense for the viewers.

The next one, stars veteran actress Manisha Koirala is about the affair of the wife with the husband’s best friend. The beauty of this screenplay was how the three main characters handle the whole issue composed and mature. Manisha Koirala shines brilliantly with her expert handling of the character.

The last is about a recently wed bride’s disappointment in the bedroom, a topic previously handled in Kalyana Samayal Saadham (2013) from the bridegroom’s perspective. Director Karan Johar has excelled himself with his casting and practicality of the problem.

This film is available exclusively on Netflix India.

Set It Up (2018) is a new rom-com from Netflix. A simple plot that has been delivered in a fun way by Director Claire Scanlon.

Many of us who had bad bosses or ill-mannered clients have thought why these individuals with power are so demeaning to us – and is there anything we can do to make their lives better, that will make the boss be nicer to everyone around them. When two young assistants Ms Harper and Charlie working for Kristine and Rick, face this problem, they conspire to Cyrano their two bosses to hook up. Their plan to get their bosses to have a social life, hence out of the office early, initially works out well that Harper and Charlie get free time to know each other well.

What should’ve been a routine romantic comedy, gets a boost by fine acting by the lead pair – the charming Zoey Deutch, and, Glen Powell. 

Zoey Deutch, Lucy Liu, Taye Diggs & Glen Powell – Set it Up (2018)

Available on Netflix India.

Kaptn Oskar (2013) is a German Romance film, about a young pair who are unable to commit or break away. Oskar is a young guy, who is trying to move away from his former girlfriend who is crazy and has set fire once to his apartment. When he meets Masha, he sets ground rules – no kissing and no intimacy. Oskar and Masha enjoy each other company, they roam around Berlin, go camping in the countryside, but they are unable to get the relationship to next level.

With a plot like this, I expected some drama and glamour. Unfortunately, the film just drags along the whole time. What made me watch till the end was some good acting by the leading pair.

Tom Lass & Amelie Kiefer

Available on Netflix India.

I found Ghajinikanth (2018) to be an enjoyable rom-com. Yes, it was a mindless comedy, but who cares when the film made you laugh in many places, Director Santhosh P. Jayakumar has succeeded on that front. Arya who did good comedy in Boss Engira Baskaran (2010) has not lived to that standard in this film, but the professional comedians Karunakaran, Sathish & Kali Venkat, cover it up quite well. In the last few weeks, this is the third film for Sayyeshaa Saigal, who is the star of the film, she impresses us with her appearance and dance performances, even though this only a cookie-cutter Kollywood heroine role. Aadukalam Naren and Uma Padmanabhan who come as the parents of Ghajinikanth (Arya) have given a good performance, especially in the scenes where Uma lies Naren to be her brother, the audience erupted in laughter.

The story can’t be any simpler. Rajnikanth (Arya) is a lab engineer, he is so forgetful (gets mind diverted as called in the film), that his friends and family call him Ghajinikanth. Because of this problem, he is unable to find a bride, until he sees Vandhana (Sayyeshaa Saigal) and falls in love with her. Vandhana misinterprets all his coverups as humane qualities and accepts his love. As always, Vandhana’s father has planned to get her wedded to his friends’ son, who becomes the villain.

I liked the climax, which was brief with a short fight-scene and the unexpected twist that precedes it.

After the box office hit of Arjun Reddy (2017), any new release of Vijay Devarakonda was eagerly awaited by his fans in South India. Geetha Govindam (2018) is a recently released Rom-Com starring him and Rashmika Mandanna, and Vijay has hit this one too out of the park. I found the film to be a good entertainer. The songs including the theme song (Inkem Inkem Inkem Kaavaale) composed by Gopi Sundar were memorable.  I liked that there were no fights or songs by drunkards.

The film has a single line story – the hero meets in real the girl he was dreaming, unfortunately, he gets misunderstood to be characterless by the heroine, but fate gets his sister arranged to be married to heroine’s brother – did the couple join together is the rest of the story.

Imaikkaa Nodigal (இமைக்கா நொடிகள்) is a crime-thriller that also wants to be a romantic, family entertainer. Starring Nayanthara and Atharvaa, Directed by R. Ajay Gnanamuthu who made his debut with Demonte Colony (2015), a film I enjoyed, there was much buzz about this film. Did it meet up the expectations? read on.

The film starts with Anjali Vikramadithyan (Nayanthara), a CBI officer and her team investing a series of gory killings that are happening in Bangalore city. The unknown perpetrator specifically targets to tarnish Anjali’s reputation in every instance. Next, we see Anjali’s brother Arjun (Atharvaa), a young doctor falling in love and breaking up with Krithikka (Raashi Khanna). After the interval, the film travels to the back-story for the villain, followed by the marriage of Anjali with Vikramadithyan (Vijay Sethupathi), then a tragic happening and finally the climax. This narration of multiple backstories and the confusion for the Director in choosing between Nayanthara and Atharvaa to be the focus makes us feel like we have watched three distinct films in a span of three hours.

Anurag Kashyap, of Gangs of Wasseypur fame, has delivered an impressive performance as the antagonist, a great addition to Kollywood. Director and his assistants have made visible efforts over the minor details in ensuring continuity between the present, the past and in the later happenings.

With the good casting and a decent story this film had, a crispier screenplay could’ve given us a good crime entertainer. Unfortunately, the film ended up reminding of the saying – “Too many cooks spoil the broth“.

Many years ago when I first visited the USA, a friend of mine living there gave me an advice that I recollect every time I travel abroad – when visiting an Indian Restaurant outside India to peep in first to see if there are more foreigners than Indians eating there, if so to stay away from that place as it would’ve been tailored for their taste-buds and not ours. I remembered this when I was seeing Crazy Rich Asians (2018), a movie that got released two months ago in the USA and was receiving rave reviews there.

The story is about a Chinese American Lady Rachel Chu, an economics professor in New York visiting the family of her boyfriend Nick Young (played by Henry Golding) in Singapore. Rachel finds it difficult to be accepted by Nick’s family as they are super rich and near royalty there. That’s all, there is no twist or drama. It will be cliché to call out most things in the film to be a cliché, so I will not say so.

I was looking forward to the film because of the heroine Constance Wu, who I liked in her role in the TV Series “Fresh Off the Boat” and she hasn’t disappointed the audience with her grounded performance as Rachel Chu. Apart from her, Awkwafina who appeared as a friend of Rachel the role of Rachel’s friend and Nico Santos from Superstore TV series who comes as Nick’s (the hero) second cousin, left their mark.  We couldn’t relate to most of the characters especially the lead pair, as we get told very little about them; in fact, Nick’s sister character got a longer definition than Nick.

The movie could very well have been financed by Singapore’s Tourism department as promoting Singapore was something it gets done well. Lastly, the movie should’ve been called Crazy Rich Chinese (I am not implying in any way only the Chinese are Crazy and Rich) as we hardly see other Asian races like Indians represented in the film.

Crazy Rich Asians – Constance Wu as Rachel Chu, Henry Golding as Nick Young, Michelle Yeoh as Eleanor Young (Mother of Nick), Awkwafina as Goh Peik Lin(Rachel’s Friend) and Nico Santos (Nick’s second cousin)

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The Reader (2008) was much talked about when it came, for the brilliant performance of an ageing lead role by Kate Winslet, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film is known for its sensual scenes where a 36-year-old woman Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) working in a West German city of the late 1950s, seducing a 15-year-old boy Michael Berg.  As I was watching the film, I thought the first 30 minutes of the romantic encounters reminding us of The Graduate (1967) will be the favourite ones for the audience, but it turns out the last 30 minutes will be the reason to watch this film. The story shifts to the late 1960s, our young boy is now a law college student who is witnessing a court trial against six female SS guards who had overseen the murder of 300 Jews in the concentration camps and one of the defendants is Hanna. What happens in the trial, the secret that Hanna carries with her, how it changes the life of Hanna and how Michael handles it forms rest of the story.

After the first hour of passion, the film takes a serious turn to talk about Nazi atrocities – the middle part of the film is painfully slow, but if you get through it, the climax is good and that’s when everything starts to make sense. The dialogues in the scene between the lonely survivor of the Auschwitz camp and Micahel was superb – showing that it is impossible for anyone who was put in the extermination camps to be able to forgive those who served in the SS guards – she says you don’t go to these camps to learn anything, you go there only to (die), if you want to learn something go to a theatre or read something, not to the camps.

Kate Winslet, David Kross

Available on Netflix India

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I am not sure I am being “fair” to write a review of Dev (2019), that I watched only till the interval – it was shoddy till then and I didn’t get any hope of it being any better in the second half.

The film felt like a poorly made Bollywood romance film that was shot in a European location. The hero Dev (Karthi) has two close friends (RJ Vigneshkanth and Amrutha Srinivasan) who grow along with him from childhood and now study in Ukraine  – if this was a Hindi film they would’ve captured stunning visuals of the location, unfortunately here it was not done so much. The two friends get him to fall in love with a girl (Rakul Preet Singh) selected randomly on Facebook. Rakul is a successful businesswoman in San Francisco (?) who is not interested in settling down. Rest is easily figured out.

Following the convention of this genre, both the heroine and hero are super rich, each owning dozens of Audi, Jaguar and Benz cars, which makes them completely unrelatable to the average audience!

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