Vaaranam Aayiram : A Thousand Things More…
iView Author: R. Gayathridevi (Chennai, India)
Email: gaya3ram83 [at] gmail [dot] com
Being a die hard movie buff has its own set of highs and lows. I went thru all of it watching Gautham Vasudev Menon’s much hyped Vaaranam Aayiram on Sunday the 16th of November at Kasi Theatre. This is the first time I am catching a movie so early after its release – in this case barely two days after. My joy of possessing the last two tickets for the Sunday show can be properly empathized with only if you are as mad as me about movies. For the second ticket I had my husband for company. That noble soul has bravely faced thru all my Surya madness – how I would swoon every time the movie trailer was on TV and on getting the ticket exclaiming with such mushiness “Can’t wait to see Surya!” Poor chap!
Our seat numbers were AA6 and AA7. I sat on AA7, the specialty being that my seat could be singled out and was not part of the organized vertical seating pattern. That gave me a halo! As if I was in a private show…. Just me and the magic of movies… As the title credits rolled in, I got hooked. Gautham’s way of putting in the credits with a gramophone record playing in the background sounded lovely to me. It immediately set the mood of the movie – one of nostalgia and reflection. I need to talk about the movie crowd, but reserve it for the later part of this story. Surya makes a non-”build up” entry as the old man Krishnan and eventually dies due to advanced throat cancer. The news of his father’s death is passed on to Surya, an air force major up on a rescue mission. Thereafter the movie is a narration of Surya’s life in his own words – his camaraderie with his dad, his love stories, his depression, his key life decisions among others.
I think I now need to take this story in a parallel way – placing the scenes and my reactions to it side by side. As the scenes of Surya’s relationship with his dad Krishnan unfolded, it became clear to me that Gautham was putting forward a very progressive form of parenting. A dad who treats his son as his equal. Krishnan smokes, but doesn’t want Surya to follow him. He has no qualms with Surya’s girl friends from school, only wants Surya to being them home and chat rather than on streets. He encourages Surya to go ahead and punch the guy who slapped him for talking with a girl he is seeing. When Surya falls head-over-heels in love with Meghna (Sameera Reddy – making a decent tamil debut), Krishnan encourages him to pursue her no matter what, even if it means chasing her all the way up to Brooklyn in USA. Krishnan genuinely believes his son is bound to be lucky in love just as he was with Malini (Simran – a sprightly presence in spite of that obvious postpartum tiredness seen in her physique). I can very well say that such a father is new to tamil cinema. But the problem is at some point it sounds too idealistic. It felt more like picture postcards of “The very happy Krishnan family”. Surya keeps muttering during various junctures “Daddy! you are my inspiration” “you are my hero” “where are you now daddy? We all need you”, but I can’t single out any scene to clearly portray the depth of his relationship with his father.
Gautham comes up trumps in creating some truly wonderful romantic scenes between Surya and Meghna, as he has done before with Raghavan and Aaradhana in Vettaiyadu Vilayadu and Anbuchelvan and Maya in Kaakha Kaakha. It is in these scenes that Surya the actor is at his best. He melts your heart with his pursuit of Meghna, wooing her with his charm, songs and guitar. He follows her to Brooklyn where she is pursuing her MS, shares her room, woos her and makes her fall for him as he promises his dad. They even indulge in pre-marital coitus (of which both Krishnan and Malini are aware and seem to endorse – cool parents, aren’t they?). Tragedy strikes when Meghna dies in a bomb blast at the Federal Building in Oklahoma. Surya is heart broken and thereafter for a good part of the movie cries his heart out. The true blue movie buff that I was, I cried along with him. Never has any actor in tamil cinema cried as well as Surya does. The scene where he cries over Meghna’s red tops and puts in into his bag in her memory and subsequently wanders to all the places they hung out was truly heart warming. The interval was announced with Surya’s bewildered life after Meghna’s death.
The second half of the movie was a roller coaster ride. Surya is in utter depression after Meghna’s death. He takes to smoke, drinks and drugs and even indulges in an ironic funeral song “Anjalai” (delightfully tuned considering the hype about this being the first ever kuthu pattu in a Gautham Menon film). With a lot of pep up from his parents, Surya leaves to Kashmir in search of himself. There he hears the kidnapping of the little boy Adithya, the son of Hari Menon, a stranger who motivates him to move on with life during his return flight from the US. He throws himself to the challenge of rescuing the boy and travels to the murky parts of Delhi to finally pursue the baddie Prithviraj, indulge in a brilliantly executed stunt scene and brings home Adithya. This serves as a major boost to this shattered confidence. But an amusing thing to me was some more scenes later Major Surya rescues a woman in a full blown army mission. I wondered how a man can do that single handedly when it’s very clear you need an army troupe to accomplish that. Surya acquires a six pack, joins the army and becomes a Major. He begins to notice Priya (Divya Spandana – an adequate performance), his sister’s friend and by a reversal of fortune, she proposes to him, travels all the way to his military academy, makes love and wins him over. Some more picture postcard shots of a happy family later, Surya comes home to cremate his father.
The major problem I have with Vaaranam Aayiram is that it fails to translate all its noble intentions of making a wholesome movie on screen. Once Surya completes rescuing Adithya, the movie falls flat. Even though Gautham Menon has made a reflective movie, he fails to give us concrete scenes. Mani Ratnam had succeeded in this brilliantly through Alaipayuthe. We are never given any details of Krishnan’s work life and why he is such a hero to his son. His pursuit of Malini ends with that beautiful song “Mundhinam Paarthene” and all that is left of their relationship is scattered dialogues of he calling her darling and Malini exclaiming they are mad over each other even after so many years of marriage. I strongly felt Gautham could have built the Krishnan-Malini relationship as a parallel to Surya’s own love life, the way Mira Nair beautifully nurtured Ashoke and Ashima’s life along with Gogol’s life in the sensitive The Namesake. I also was not convinced of the musician part of Surya’s personality. I felt it was just an excuse to string in Harris Jeyaraj’s “I-have-heard-this-before-but-it-still-sounds-good” tunes. Surya pours his heart out into both the roles and his effort is seen in every frame of the movie, though his act as the elderly Krishnan seems a bit too rehearsed and conscious. I expected a much better movie from Gautham Menon. He is one of the better directors around and I sincerely hope his coming ventures iron out the above flaws.
The audience. My God! They were such a loony bunch. A group of guys all drunk were hopping here and there finding their seats disrupting the proper sight of the scenes for a good ten minutes. And then there was this annoying guy who shouted out exactly a minute before the scene of the blast that Meghna will die! So much for the suspense element! And another irritating guy was the one sitting before me judiciously recording the audio of the movie and later complaining to the girl beside him about the film dragging and shouting on and off to stop the movie. Half the audience had left when there was still about 25 minutes of the movie left. The film buff in me felt let down by this kind of callous behaviour. I just couldn’t understand why people were being so impatient and restless with this movie. Vaaranam Aayiram had all the makings of a great movie. Only that it didn’t quite hit the bull’s eye. At the same time it didn’t deserve this kind of bullies as audience either.
Tags: Gautham Menon, Reactions, surya, Tamil, Vaaranam Aayiram
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hi,it’s a nice review!!..keep it up!!
@hermetic, absolutely my sentiments too! while the chances of me seeing this movie are low, please put spoiler alerts in your reviews!
sur[i]ya my absolute fav is doing a KAMAL now…why could it have not been a Sivkumar or Prithviraj/Suriya
…than …..suriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriya suriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyas uriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriya suriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriya suriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriya suriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriya suriyasuriyasuriyasuriya suriyasuriyasuriyasuriyasuriya
Love him but a little too much of him……tooooooo much….none the less…has give his heart and soul to this…..he delivers a belter in parts….the Anjalai song is on loop….and he is superb in it…..love it….even more….
What was the climax about..why spend so much money on it..the rand finale…would have loved it if it ended with a straight cut to the sea…..Siman letting him know what Vaarnam Ayiram is and thats it…….
Reminded me of my dad and me too…..yes in that way touched a chord….Suriya in that get up…almost reminded me of my dad…chocked….
Could have been so much crisper (not the word i would prefer to use in this context though) something which gave me the lump and leave me with a heavy heart…..it just went on and on and on and on….
Vasanbala from this ID
@ Gayathri
I can empathise with your experience, but considering that you were so excited to watch the movie & that you had a lot of expectations why on earth did you go watch the movie @ Kasi?
Now Kasi is a fine theatre no doubt, but in your case you would have been better off to watch it at a Sathyam or an Inox & could have avoided the feeling about the audience.Please understand that the people coming to watch a movie in a single screen like Kasi ( by and large) are the type who would generally wanna watch a regular entertainer for about 2 & 1/2 hrs.Beyong that expecting anything from them would be too much!!!
Sad
dont quite agree with you as to why suriya considered his father as hero. at times sons are just biased that their dad is a hero for the way they are . it need not be measured. i agree though that the latter part of the film was loose and after meghnas death it became far too simplistic. watever though think it was a brave attempt never done on indian screen before. and of course techinacally some portions were outstanding. his redemption though could have been bettered
Hi Gayathri,
Nice review..I have only thing to mention here..
Suriya goes to Berkley, California and not Brooklyn..Please do not mind for that correction..
Enjoy watching movies
Hi ,that was a well written review.
I’ve never been a fan of Mr.Gautham Menon.
Sure he is much better than the average director doing the rounds in tamil cinema,I have noticed that all the protagonists in his movies have been picture perfect without shades of grey(except pachhaikili… maybe),that I have never been able to relate to any of the characters.
I was not expecting a path breaking movie from Mr.gautham anyway. so I might just watch it to see if Surya is indeed the next Kamalhassan.
Girish,Hermetic, Ravi,Phoenix, Sethumadhavan, Arun,Suresh, Bhansan and Bala – Thanks all of you for finding this maiden post of mine worthy of any comment at all.
Phoenix – Guess you are really mad about Suriya. Ya, he is one of the better actors around.
Sethumadhavan – The reason I chose Kasi was for the simple reason that it is just a 10-minute drive off my home. I fully agree with you. I think I needed this to understand the pulse of different audience.
Suresh – point noted. But I think in cinema such conclusions need to be visually represented rather than just told or inferred by the audience. You are right that such a subject hasn’t been tried before. but at the same time VA needs a lot more, right?
Bhansan – Thanks a lot. Actually i did find that mistake but only after i posted it. will ensure care next time!
Bala – Thanks again? You are right when you say “all the protagonists in his movies have been picture perfect without shades of grey(except pachhaikili… maybe)”. But what i like about gautam heroes is they have a subtle human fragility here and there. In Minnalae, Maddy goes for Reema knowing well she is engaged to Abbas. Anbuchelvan of KK is not your in your face police officer, but one who firmly believes is profession is more likely to eclipse his personal life. Same for Raghavan for VV. a 40+ romantic tough cop! good! the father son duo of VA could have been far more layered if only Gautham delved deeper.
Hi! Thanks for the wonderful review. The movie should have been made into two movies. That way, people would not have complained about the second half’s length ( I, though, did not complain. But ALL my friends did!)
And I want to bring the reader’s attention to one thing. VA is defenitely inspired from Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Yeah, Godfather is a mafia story, but those who have read the book (and have some amount of imagination ;)) can see the similarities. The protagonist finds love in a foreign land, but after the death of the girl (due to a bomb blast!) returns home to marry his childhood flame. Sounds similar? The book is also about dad-son relations, to a level. You can uncover many similarities if you let your imagination run amok! Afterall, the book is mentioned in the film.
Cheers!
good review. Nailed the part where it slowed down. The 3-act screenplay got thrown away somewhere. But gautham did do justice to the romance. And surya ( atleast to me ) was just a revelation. Wow was what i thought about his performance. At a very high level, Questions of why army, why not a different love angle with the girl he marries eventually ( maybe his dad helped him out there – in a way that parents dont ) – if the question is how to get out of a tragedy, just fighting through it is the answer – but that doesnt mean you have to show it literally by showing kidnappings/army etc etc. Again well shot, had a lot of gautham touches, some good performances, but too long, and the focus in a bigger sense of the story was missing. I agree that dad’s can be heroes to their sons for silly reasons – the dad doesnt need to be real life hero at all – like my dad, just being there for you can make your parent a hero from a kid’s perspective – but somewhere in the second half gautham lost his focus – or the whole kidnapping/army stuff was to prove/show something – if so, i missed it.
Manoj — thanks for your appreciation. That was such a knock-out observation. guess gautham borrowed indirectly this time around form a western bestseller. he had acknowledged Derailed the novel for Pachaikili…
Padhu — Thanks for your kind words. I agree with your comments. Gautham did want to portray every aspect of surya’s life including his killer sojourn st the army. same for his second love, priya. but everything was too superficial and most events stood alone rather than contributing to a cohesive plot.
Manoj — thanks for your appreciation. That was such a knock-out observation. guess gautham borrowed indirectly this time around from a western bestseller. he had acknowledged Derailed the novel for Pachaikili…
Padhu — Thanks for your kind words. I agree with your comments. Gautham did want to portray every aspect of surya’s life including his killer sojourn st the army. same for his second love, priya. but everything was too superficial and most events stood alone rather than contributing to a cohesive plot.