1.5 / 4 STARS
DIRECTOR: K. BALACHANDAR
ACTOR: MADHAVAN, RAGAVENDRA LAWRENCE
ACTRESSES: SIMRAN, SNEHA
MUSIC DIRECTOR: A.R. RAHMAN
STORYLINE:
Madhavan is a doctor but he acted once in a film and therefore is the sweetheart of every eligible girl in Madras. Sneha works as a nurse under him, and she, too, is in love with him. Meanwhile, Raghavendra Lawrence is a dancer in Madras, and he is in love with Simran, another girl about town. Madhavan and Simran have an arranged marriage, and Sneha and Lawrence shelve their loves. Madhavan and Simran's marriage is going happily when --
-- out of the blue, a London woman comes with her son to Madhavan's house. The boy finds a photo of Madhavan and says, "Daddy!" Simran gets mad, accuses Madhavan, and he says, "Yes, the boy is mine." It seems he fathered the boy with the London woman back in college because she just wanted a son and no husband. Simran gets mad at Madhavan (with just cause, if you ask me), and divorces him.
But even after divorce, Madhavan and Simran are still friends. Both of them still love each other and secretly want to get back together. At this time, Simran learns of Sneha's love for Madhavan and thinks he, too, reciprocates. She does a "thyaagam" of her real feelings, and offers to get Sneha married to Madhavan. Madhavan, too, does a "thyaagam" of his real feelings and offers to get Simran married to Lawrence.
Thrown in the mix is Madhavan's uncle, played by Kavignar Vaali, who wants Madhavan and Simran to get back together. Also thrown in are Manivannan as Lawrence's money-loving father, Vadivukkarasi as Lawrence's drunkard mother, and Seemaa as Madhavan's mother. There's also Vivek (mainly for comedic relief), who wants to marry Sneha! But anyway, Madhavan and Simran are successful in their attempts, and the respective marriages are plotted. Simran is to marry Lawrence on the same day and same "maedai" as Madhavan will marry Sneha.
"Adhisaya thirumanam, alagiya thirumanam..." song begins to play. Marriage day is on. What happens? Who marries whom? All decided at the end of the movie.
COMMENTS:
After having seen the movie, I leaned back and had a good long laugh. Ha ha ha ha ha. How the mighty have fallen. Balachander aengaiyoe irunthaaru (just the other day, my mother and sister were watching "Baamaa Vijayam"), and now he is one of the biggest dud directors in Tamilnadu.
When my cousin first saw this film in Madras, I asked him how was "Paarthaalae Paravasam"? And he said, "Paarthaalae joram varum!" I can't think of a more apt description.
It's funny how Indian culture is so celebrated in so many movies as being pure and better than American culture. You would never know it from this movie. In this movie, people act in a more "advanced" way than even the Westerners. By about a 100 years.
All the characters are poorly drawn. There are tons of unnecessary characters thrown in ('Thalaivaasal' Vijay, for one). And the only reason Madhavan is a movie star is so we can have cameos from Kamal Haasan and Ramyakrishnan. But the major character mistake is with Simran. She's so mad at Madhavan that she's ready to take off the sari he gave to her and throw it in his face, and drive out like that? And then two days later, when he says, "Happy birthday," she's very happy, and they go out together and eat ice cream. It seems Balachander wanted both an amicable divorce plus a plausible reason for the divorce. Can't happen that way in India.
Balachander made this movie just because he wanted the "new" theme of husband and wife searching for new mates for each other.
But -- BUT -- at least the first two hours aren't boring. You're laughing at the brainless storyline the entire time, but at least the first two hours aren't boring. Not gripping, either. Aitho poguthu padam. And then you get to the marriage sequence at the end.
Laugh-out-loud ridiculous. That's all I'll say about the marriage sequence. Laugh-out-loud ridiculous. Watch it for yourself and laugh out loud because it's ridiculous.
Madhavan and Sneha have both done adequate jobs in the acting. Lawrence has acted well (unlike his job in "Paarthaen Rasithaen") but he doesn't look pleasing, and I found myself wishing he'd stick to dancing and not acting. It doesn't help that at every turn of the movie, he is made fun of for being dark-skinned. Simran, who usually acts well, acts adequately for most of the movie, but in two scenes, her stuttering sobbing seems a little bit artificial and overdone. Vivek's comedy brings a laugh or two, but it's far below the quality of his comedy in other films.
Balachander has murdered the value of relationships in this movie.
Oh yeah, Nilalgal Ravi's death has to win the award for "the stupidest death in all of Tamil cinema history." Here's the moral of that story: don't walk into any elevator shafts when there's no elevators inside them. :)
NOTE ON THE MUSIC:
The songs exist for one reason -- to show off Lawrence's dancing, and also Sneha and Simran's midriffs. A.R. Rahman has done a pretty poor job on the music, in my opinion. Plus, the only song I really liked -- "Adhisaya Thirumanam" -- has had a hack job done on it in the movie. Music is not a saving grace of this movie.
RECOMMENDATION:
Skip it. (Or here's a tip for watching the whole movie free without any cost -- watch it on-line live at this site. Click while it's still on.
VIJAY VANNIARAJAN