Avinash Ramachandran

Desire. Almost every relationship is based on a desire of some sort. It can be a desire for companionship, touch, love, family, respect, and of course, lust. But at the base of it all is a desire to feel desired. Wanting someone to want you for who you are is a high that many go through life without ever feeling. It is in pursuit of this uns that people give their all. Vishnu Edavan’s Hi is about one such guy, Mayilsamy (A wonderfully understated Kavin), who has everything but love of the romantic kind. He meets a down-in-the-dumps woman, Devayani (A superb Nayanthara), who has nothing but the belief that love is destined for the more fortunate ones. No prizes for guessing where the movie goes from here, and the best part? Vishnu isn’t interested in making you play the guessing game, and just wants you to sit back and enjoy a simple, cheery romcom that hits you right at the feels.

Ideas. Every piece of art is built on an idea, upon which various layers are laid before it reaches its final version. Even if the idea is enterprising, the same can’t be guaranteed for the finished content. Just like how it isn’t enough that a film has its heart in the right place, one can’t really bat for a film just because it is an experiment, or a ‘brave’ attempt. That is the problem that plagues debut director Ramachandran Kannan’s Ram and Leela: neither does it have its heart in the right place, nor does this experiment yield promising results. It tries too hard to play around with the form only to end up as a convoluted mess.

Legacy. Not everyone’s story becomes one for the history books. Not everyone’s actions become part of everyday conversations, right? But many a time, many sections of society reduce legacy to progeny, and this includes even the top 1% of the top 1%. What they leave behind matters as much as who they leave behind. The Vishwanaths are no different. When we first meet Sanjay Vishwanath (Suriya, turning back the clock), the protagonist of Venky Atluri’s Vishwanath and Sons, he has just won an Olympic gold medal for the country. He is a super-successful businessman who does god-knows-what, earns god-knows-how-much money, and lives in a god-knows-how-palatial bungalow. And yet, the needs in the Vishwanath household are simple: Sanjay’s long-pending marriage. His mother Nirmala Devi (A show-stealing Radikaa Sarathkumar) is worried about her 42-year-old son, who is well past the ‘marriageable’ age. While he does look a million bucks, there’s a very good reason why he has been evading marriage. But when the legacy of the Vishwanaths comes up again, Sanjay, a doting son, relents to his mother’s wish that he start a family. He finds a surrogate mother, gets himself a son, and bam! Legacy levels completed. But when the baby falls sick, the surrogate mother, Maddy (A terrific Mamitha Baiju) enters their lives, and bam! Everyone’s world turns upside down.

Redemption. There is something cathartic about seeing someone find a way to stand up despite the odds being heavily stacked against them. Such a redemptive arc isn’t accorded to the ordinary. It requires immense grit, perseverance, and of course, atleast a sliver of luck going your way. Probably why the majority, who resign to their fates, see the underdog as an extension of their own unfulfilled dreams. They want to root for the person who society leaves to rot. Be it Rocky, Saani Kaayidham, Captain Miller, or DC, director Arun Matheswaran is clear about the stories he wants to tell. These are not stories of the people Tamil cinema always loves to tell. These people are, let’s call them, Arun Matheswaran’s Irregulars. They are the people whose lives are forever on the fringe. People whose lives are never important enough for the majority. However, these stories didn’t always translate into convincing cinema since the sum of the parts didn’t do much for the whole. But the fourth time is the charm for Arun, and almost everything fell into place in DC, and it all started when he signed this one person called Anirudh Ravichander.