Lokee

As one among the thousands desperately wanting to watch the much awaited movie Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya (VTV), I watched VTV on maayajaal last Friday. It is a typical one liner love story but director Gautam Menon has attempted to portray it differently. Whether he succeeded in his attempt is a moot point. The story is all about the relationship between a girl from conservative family (Trisha as Jessie) and a young filmmaker (Simbu as Karthik). In credit lines, Simbu was titled young superstar (He used to be little super star. Not sure when this transition actually happened). Unlike other directors of his past assignments (except Kovil), Gautam Menon completely defines the role leaving Simbu play a role of subtle guy. As in Varanam Aayiram and Kaaka Kakka, hero starts narrating the story from his point of view.

He starts of with the fuzzy reasoning "what is so special about Jessie that made him love her". In its sacrosanct version,

"உலகத்ல எத்தனையோ பொண்ணுங்க இருக்க நான் ஏன் Jessiya love பண்னேன்?"

This dialogue was repeatedly quoted throughout the movie by Karthik, Jessie and Karthik's friend. While it nails down to the gist of the subject and motivation behind his love, it need not be used so often (it was so often that few among audience sarcastically started chanting the same). The movie starts of with love at first sight - Karthik tries to show off, impress, gain acquaintance and propose but eventually ends up knowing that she is an year older than he is and that she belongs to a conservative Malayalee Christian family.

Jessie plans to visit her Grandma at Azhappula. As in Varanam Aayiram and Alaipayuthey, Karthik follows her all the way to Azhappula with his friend. The friend character adds humour and he acts so cool and agile. After 4 days of search, by luck (or intelligent guess to trace her in Church) he meets Jessie and she takes her to home introducing him as his classmate. Karthik regrets for proposing her all of a sudden and both agrees to be friends. During their journey back to Chennai, they end up breaking the promise or resolution to be friends acknowledging feelings between them.

Throughout the story, Jessie seems to be in commotion changing her stand on the relationship. Her wavery mind, stuck between family and Karthik, has been well portrayed. As usual when Jessie's parents notice Jessie-Karthik relationship, they arrange her marriage. Jessie terms the relationship is over and goes back to Azhappula for her wedding. Suddenly Jessie expresses her discordance in Church. Karthik meets Jessie at her home in Azhappula and both again falls in love. Jessie expresses her feelings to Karthik (I liked the BGM score in this scene. I am looking for DVD to rip & listen).

Back to Chennai, things again go well and suddenly go for toss. Finally Jessie makes up her mind and terminates relationship with Karthik. (Again BGM in the following scene was awesome). Karthik, then gets chance to direct his first film and choses to make up film out of his own life.

Climax of Kathik's movie and Climax of VTV differs. While everyone starts guessing what the climax would be (sad / happy ending), Gautam decides to show both: A happy ending in Karthik's film where he meets up Jessie by chance after 3 years while he shoots his film and reunites. A sad ending in actual / Gautam's film where Jessie marries someone else. Karthik shows up his film to Jessie and the film ends. While this was confusing, I really liked this part as it succinctly distinguishes cinema from real life. I see close resemblance with many of his movies on various aspects.

Minnale - Reena, a Christian => Jessie

Minnale - Rajesh, a Mechanical Engineer => Karthik / Mechanical Engineer

KK - Jo/Maya, Maths => Jessie, Math grad

Jessie's reply "Avangellam unoda kannala parkala pola" to Karthik's say "Azhaga iruka. Sumarana figure aa irunthale pasanga suthi varuvanga ..." was intelligent and romantic. Had Gautam carried this momentum throughout the script it would have been great.

Few scenes were amazingly captured and Manoj deserves appreciation. I liked the way he pictured Eeram (most of them blue saturated and pleasing).

While it is up to the director to decide what & how he wants to present and chose stand on climax, he has set up some expectation and we expect him to meet them to an extent. It took almost a month to release audio in Chennai (after audio release in London on Dec 18). I was literally looking for news everyday. I had been waiting till 12 AM in the morning for booking to open in Satyam. Even after no luck getting tickets at Satyam, I managed to drive 30 Km all the way to Maayajal. A pretty decent movie to watch.