What happens when your life crosses with the (once) love of your life when you are already married and happy with your wife and kid at some point in the future? Sound interesting ain't it? It did to me which led me to the theaters to catch the first day first show and does SOK live up to the promise? Not quite I should say.
The story
The film opens in a southern district in Tamilnadu where Gautam is getting married to Kundhavi. Gautam doesn't look too interested in the proceedings and so does Kundhavi who always aspired to fall hopelessly in love. The wedding party breaks into a song, a folkish number with good dancing and locales.
Cut to Mumbai six years later and Gautam is a hotshot husband, a caring and doting father. His daughter Ishu is the hyperactive kid in the block who has an opinion of an adult at times. Gautam is a mechanic who test drives cars in Maruti and Kundhavi is also a professional with a good job. A freak brush with a higher official during a research and development seminar pushes Gautam to do his own research which get's him tickets to New York to present a paper there.
Gautam leaves for America while Kundhavi get's to read his personal diary during his absence. The diary takes us back in time to Gautam's college days and we come to Coimbatore where Gautam was an engineering student and is hopelessly in love with Aishwarya (Ishu). Gautam was a rogue more than a student and is shown bashing up guys on campus and ragging juniors.
Aishwarya, is the daughter of the local MP (Member of Parliament) and Gautam decide to get married outside their families without the consent of their parents. On the day of the wedding the MP's goons bash up Gautam and take Aishwarya away. Cut back to the present where Gautam is back from the US while Kundhavi arranges for Aishwarya to come back to Gautam for one day under the pretext of fulfilling his wish in the diary. What happens to Gautam and Kundhavi? Where is Aishwarya and how is she? Do the relationships that were created by destiny stand the test of time? All these questions will be answered in the movie.
Credits
Surya as Gautam has done a good job as the college rascal, husband and father. He's getting better with each movie. Jyothika as Kundhavi also manages to convince us with her performance. I particularly like the scene where she confronts Gautam with his secret from the past and bursts into tears, the camera maintaining a tight shot all along. Bhoomika as Aishwarya walks in and out of the movie looking dreamy and adorable in her first avatar and sexy in the second avatar. She looks hopelessly thin in this movie though.
There are a number of other characters in the movie of which Vadivelu needs special mention only because if there was one person who should not have been in this movie it was him. That would also have spared us the audience the pain of sitting thorough his horrible jibes in the name of comedy. Sukanya has a small part in the movie, nothing substantial just a walk in walk out role. The movie is canned well, the village looks beautiful in the opening scene of the movie, camrea work by RD Rajasekhar. The length of the movie could have been trimmed by about 15 - 30 minutes to control the lag. Editing by Anthony could have been tighter.
AR Rahman's music and background score are the best things in this movie apart from Surya. "Ammi mithichaachu" has been canned appropriately doing justice to the song. "Munbay va" has also been shot well though nothing was new in it. The picturisation of "New york nagaram" leaves a lot to be desired. I wish this was done better. New york looks like Europe in this song and the transition are right out of a powerpoint presentation. By the way, most of the supporting cast in the movie is very amateur which works for the movie at times.
Krishna, the director does a reasonably good debut. The next time he sits on a movie, he should work closely on the screenplay because what looks good at the script level can be made or marred in the screenplay. This movie will surely hit with the college going romantic crowd and the female audience.
Trivia
# Is there a road tram service in New York? I doubt if there is one which means 'New york nagaram' was not shot in NY.
# 'New york nagaram' could have been anywhere in Switzerland because I remember seeing the plus sign, which is the swiss national flag, in this song sequence.
# Not many films are shot in Coimbatore. KG Theater, Cross cut road signal, fly over, Brooke bond road, KMCH (Kovai Medical Center Hospital), Agricultural university are all featured in this movie.
# PSB is the name of the engg college in the movie, the striking resemblance to PSG is something one can't miss.
# One of the opening scenes in the movie show a sunflower field in full bloom, was this Andhra? # One can't miss the obvious commercial endorsements - Maruti Swift, Boost, Head and Shoulders, TVS Apache
