Avinash Ramachandran

Catastrophic. When more than one character uses this word in a spy thriller, you know that it means just one thing: Global destruction. In Manu Anand’s latest, Mr X, we hear it a few times, and every single time, the weight of the destruction-in-wait is clear. The potential attack has the capacity to obliterate an entire State, and since this is a Tamil film, it is the state of Tamil Nadu, which is in danger, and we have our homegrown R&AW agents who do the thankless job of saving the nation. But despite the massive threat of a nuclear attack, personal equations of the agents jeopardising the mission, and a couple of flashbacks too many, Mr X manages to entertain as long as we, just like the makers, don’t take the film too seriously.

Blur. Tamil Nadu is a state that wears its politics and cinema on both its sleeves. From using cinema to amplify their political stance and using politics to shape their cinematic trajectories, many find themselves at the center of this Venn diagram. Whenever one among the many in the center gets the lion’s share of the attention, there comes a satire that is either a scathing commentary on the politics-cinema sphere, or a trend train that aims to milk the cash cow for a satirical spoof that is neither biting nor sardonic. Unfortunately, for all those involved in Umapathy Ramaiah’s TN 2026, the film firmly falls into the latter category.

Vanity. A few years back, business magnate Saravanan decided to be the face of his multi-million-dollar empire. He was plastered across TV ads, in newspapers, and on YouTube. The next ideal step was to take up the political route or don the greasepaint. Saravanan decided to become an actor. And then… he rechristened himself as Legend Saravanan, and made his acting debut with… wait for it… Legend. It was heavily trolled for its content, his performance, and everything else in between. Four years later, Legend Saravanan has come back to collect his dues with Leader, under the aegis of director RS Durai Senthilkumar. He embarks on a path to redemption courtesy a clever director, a compelling script, a convincing ensemble, carefree masala-cinema sensibilities, and, of course, good ol’ money.

Money. In a world that is all about division, money holds the ultimate power to make you breach such hierarchies. Of course, it also results in the decimation of a few age-old structures, but that’s par for the course in a world that doesn’t wait for people to catch up. But is money really the ultimate thing? Does the presence or lack of it really determine your worth in the world? As a character in the debutant filmmaker Sivakumar Murugesan’s film says, “Has any parent refused to take care of their child because they didn’t have the financial resources?” One might think it is a poignant tale of parents and children, and how the world treats the geriatric. In a way, Thaai Kizhavi is definitely that kind of a film, but it is also a film that makes you unabashedly laugh out loud with a consistency that has been missing in Tamil cinema for quite a while.

Freedom. It is quite an interesting beast because everyone wants it, but somehow they are tuned to keep it caged and away from others who might not have it. This dichotomy is very telling of the human mind and its vagaries. There is always someone who has more freedom than you, and someone who doesn’t have as much. It is supposed to be an absolute unit, but there are enough caveats in freedom to allow oppression of some kind to be perpetuated through avenues like patriarchy, misogyny, and simple conditioning. Director Vipin Radhakrishnan’s Angammal is one such film that shows how exercising freedom always comes at a cost in a society that values conformity.