Avinash Ramachandran

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.

Hate. Mahatma Gandhi once said that the biggest enemy, as many think, is not hate, but fear. But the powers that be know that the easiest way to dissipate this fear is hate. If you are afraid of something, you might stay away from it. But when you hate something, you want it to be vanquished. That’s what is happening across the world right now, and H Vinoth’s latest film, Jana Nayagan, explores the agenda of hate. While the core idea of Tamil Nadu CM Joseph Vijay’s Jana Nayagan might seem similar, the agenda is more political, the electoral kind. Vijay’s cinematic swansong tries to balance both agendas, but warning bells for the future stand no chance against a fiery political speech that is delivered by a charming Pied Piper.

Arete. This simple Greek word holds the key to understanding why thinkers think, engineers build marvels, writers write magnum opuses, and filmmakers want to make great films. Arete is the realisation of one’s potential on the path to excellence. With The Odyssey, director Christopher Nolan has embarked on one such path. In fact, it is like almost everything he has done so far in his career has built to this moment. The Odyssey has every theme that has become synonymous with Nolan. There’s the concept of time, the promise of a father, the wait of a child, the fate of a wife, the betrayal of your faith, society’s descent into madness, sacrifice for the greater good, questioning the status quo, the idea of home, and flawed humans who don’t know what to do with the consequences of their ‘heroic’ actions.