Almost a decade after “Minnale”, Gautam Menon’s debut movie as a director in Tamil cinema comes another love story. The movies Gautam directed after the first weren’t out and out romantic movies though romance played a nice part in the overall narrative.
Initially reported by the media as “Chennaiyil oru mazhaikaalam”, the movie took the title of “Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya” when it was confirmed that Silambarasan was being cast to play the male lead. “Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya” is a nice warm love story, it’s takes you through the life of Karthik and Jessie. The former is a Mechanical Engineer by education who aspires to become a filmmaker, the parallels one can draw to Gautam’s education and profession are just too obvious.
Karthik also plays cricket and practices boxing as a hobby, which really turns out to be an excuse to a superbly set action sequence in the middle of the movie. Jessie is a young IT professional in Chennai, loves mathematics and we don’t get to know anything more about her. Karthik is instantly smitten by her right from the first time he sees her. Of course, the fact that Karthik and his family live in the ground floor of Jessie’s house gives him ample opportunities to ogle at her every now and then.
So here’s the first act play out on screen, you have a premise and two smart, charming and beautiful people who inevitably have to fall for each other. What’s going to be different with this movie is that this is Gautam Menon’s story, someone who has fascinating attention for detail and can write at least some characters in 3 dimensions. So conflict comes in the form of 1) religion: Jessie is Syrian Catholic Malayali Christian and Karthik is Hindu, Vellalar; 2) age: Jessie’s a year older than Karthik; 3) will: Karthik is completely enamoured by Jessie while Jessie is slightly more of a realist.
Karthik get’s introduced to KS Ravikumar through Cinematographer Ganesh and get a shot at interning under him. How does Karthik convince Jessie about his love? Does Karthik break into the big league with his film making? These are core plot points whose resolution can’t be spelled out in a blog and spoil the experience for you.
Silambarasan as Karthik has tried his best to portray on screen his characters sans histrionics. He’s done a good job at emoting, however I still have bones to pick at his dialogue delivery. Trisha Krishnan as Jessie is a pretty sight, she emotes slightly better but has a long way to go in that department. I thought she looked awful in at least two close up shots.
Full credits should go to the director and the dress designer for dressing up Trisha in immaculate drapes of saris, superbly cut and fit salwars and some very elegant western attire. Babu Antony plays Jessie’s Father and Kittu plays Karthik’s Father.
The opening title sequences are innovative and appear to have been filmed on the Vembanad Lake, the same place where the Rajiv Gandhi snake boat race is held with much fanfare every year. Manoj Parahamsa has canned the backwaters of Kuttanad in all it’s splendour wonderfully for this movie, it can easily pass off as advertisement for God’s own country’s tourism department.
AR Rahman’s songs have already been a rage, this movie has one of his most complete background scores for Indian movies. I’m still not able to recollect a melody from the score however I remember enjoying their richness. They didn’t distract me from the narrative and they probably helped take the narrative forward. I got to mention about the 5.1 mix which wasn’t distractive even once, that’s rare for a Tamil movie and full credit for that should go to KJ Singh.
Finally kudos to Gautam Vasudev Menon on writing a nice warm love story which isn’t all sugary and fluffy and keeping it’s decent enough without the usual trappings of masala cinema like a parallel comedy track and an item number. “Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya” is an honest effort, worth watching in the halls for it’s clean content, decent performances and a nice love story.
Trivia:
1) Clever references to Rahman’s hit music pieces from the past, “Mustafa Mustafa” plays on when a reference to friendship is made between the lead pair and “Pa sa ni sa” (sung by Shankar Mahadevan) from Bombay is talked about in a similar scene where lead pairs eyes meet.
2) The church that is featured in this movie is St Mary’s Forane Church, Pulinkunnu, Alapuzha district. One has to drive down the Alapuzha to Changanasserry road to reach this place, probably 20 or so kms away.
3) For a change “Amazing grace” is played when Jessie is ushered into the Church for her wedding, usually it’s Wagner’s wedding march. Mendelssohn’s wedding march features in the song “Anbil Avan” though.
4) In Syrian Catholic Churches the engagement or manasuchodhyam is mandatory before a wedding. In the movie Jessie directly get’s ready to be married which can be considered a cinematic liberty.
5) Gautam Menon himself has dubbed for Jerry, Jessie’s brother. Chinmayi Sripada has dubbed for Trisha. Chinmayi’s tamil is spot on, but Malayalam leaves a lot to be desired. Case in point: First time when Jessie talks Malayalam on screen and then the lines she says at her Granny’s place when Karthik is in police custody.
6) Silambarasan continue his Ajith reverance with a reference to the Thalai and Billa in a conversation with Ganesh.
7) I’m wondering if the difference in age thing in this movie is yet another attempt at portraying Silambarasan’s own dalliance with the superstar’s elder daughter in the past.
8) KS Ravikumar steals the show in every scene he is featured in. Also nice self deprecating humour when Ganesh says to Karthik that Gautam Menon makes movies over a long time and with English dialogues.
9) St Alphonsa is seen in the frame in the dining room of Jessie’s house and at a bus stop in Pulinkunnu. Is this an attempt to hint the time this scene is set in? In 2009 Blessed Alphonsa was declared a Saint and could be seen at every nook and corner in Central Kerala.
10) Naga Chaithanya & Samantha play the lead roles in Telugu version of this movie, they also play a cameo in Karthik’s movie in the Tamil version.
