Kirubhakar Purushothaman

Vidaamuyarchi opens with a long shot of Arjun (Ajith Kumar) casually walking out of his house in Azerbaijan, carrying a bag. He opens his car boot, which provides a chance for a mid-shot of the Tamil superstar. There is no slow-motion nor a close-up. Anirudh Ravichander doesn’t whip out his signature ‘mass’ background score. In fact, the music is almost non-existent. The whole sequence is conspicuously in a matter-of-fact tone, sending a message that Magizh Thirumeni and Ajith Kumar are vehemently steering away from the usual gimmicks of a Tamil superstar film. Within a few minutes into the movie, it becomes certain that Vidaamuyarchi is a story-driven film in every sense of the word, where the superstar embraces a white-collar role that is too subtle for his fans. Every scene screams one thing: There will be no fan service here. And that will be a huge welcome for any Tamil cinema viewer, who has been bombarded with Rockies, Pushpas, Jailers, and Beasts. It is funny how Tamil filmmakers get a pat on the back for not doing the bad things, even if they aren’t doing anything great. That’s telling of the state of affairs.

If one has to go on a quest to find why the Malayalam film industry is consistent with churning out good cinema, the journey will end with the secret alchemy of finding stories from the people. Lijo Joseph’s Angamaly Diaries is about Angamaly. Maheshinte Prathikaram provides a gorgeous landscape of Idukki, and so does Idukki Gold. Manjummel Boys is, well, about the resilience of the boys from Manjummel. Malayalam writers don’t make stories but end up finding them around. Ponman, written by GR Indugopan and Justin Mathew, is yet another story about everyday people in the port city of Kollam. The story, the conflict, and the stake of Ponman are small. But the film leaves one pondering about big things of human resilience, grit, and ethics–typical of good Malayalam cinema. The film’s protagonist PP Ajeesh (Basil Joseph), has a rather unique and risky business called Madiyil Jewelry or Walking Gold. Ajeesh sells gold upfront to families who are struggling to come up with dowry themselves to marry off their daughters. After the wedding, the families pay him off with the gift money. The conflict in Ponman arises when Ajeesh lends 25 sovereign gold to the family of Steffi (Lijo Mol Josse), but her useless brother Bruno (Anandh Manmadhan) and hapless mother only make half the amount to pay back. With Steffi’s husband being a short-fused ruffian from a notorious area of Kollam, Ajeesh ends up in a do-or-die predicament to retrieve his gold.

In a sense, Oru Jaathi Jathakam is a bold attempt as the director M Mohanan, writers Rakesh Mantodi and Sharesh Malayankandy didn’t shy away from making a comedy-drama, which for pedantic and caviller eyes might strike as problematic. In reality, the intentions of the film seem to be the opposite. Oru Jaathi Jathakam is about a problematic 38-year-old virgin named Jayesh (Vineeth Srinivasan), who is struggling to find a match due to his regressive ideas about gender, queer community, and women in general. Throughout the film, we travel with this caricature of a sexist, and the film satirises their worldview, their take on women, and things that are beyond the grasp of their regressive thought. Jayesh, a writer with a magazine, has numerous conditions and demands for his future bride. He wants her to be fair-skinned, stay-at-home wife/mother, heed to gender roles, and above all, her horoscope should match his. When we meet Jayesh, he is in a hurry to find a girl since his horoscope claims that his father would die if he isn’t married before 38. Nevertheless, Jayesh isn’t the compromising type. With equally-regressive family and friends around, he doesn’t budge despite his age, looks, and attitude. Oru Jaathi Jathakam is essentially his journey of meeting and rejecting women.

Kudumbasthan’s premise taps into an evergreen theme in Tamil cinema, which is the struggles of a middle-class protagonist trying to make ends meet. The film’s title itself evokes memories of classics from filmmakers like Bhagyaraj, Visu, and actor Saravanan, who have explored similar themes in their comedy dramas across generations. The story revolves around Naveen (Manikandan), a typical middle-class youngster from a small town in Coimbatore, who is newly married to Vennila (Saanve Megghana). Naveen works as a designer at a local marketing company, earning just enough to sustain their modest life. Meanwhile, Vennila prepares for the UPSC exams while managing household responsibilities and battling caste-based discrimination from her mother-in-law. Their lives take a turn when Naveen, in a moment of self-respect, slaps a client and loses his job. What follows is a downward spiral of financial struggles, debt, and deception, with no apparent way out.

No one parodies Gautham Menon’s films better than the director himself. A few minutes into Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse, we see a middle-aged married man lying in a hotel room bed with his mistress. The camera captures them from a top angle as he delivers the iconic line from Vaaranam Aayiram (2008), “Inga yaarum ivlo azhaga oru ponna paathuruka maataan." This memorable dialogue catapulted Gautham to stardom, not just in Tamil Nadu but also in Kerala. Seventeen years later, the director transforms it into a self-deprecating joke in his Malayalam debut— a film that is noticeably devoid of his signature style, trademarks, and aesthetics. With Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse, Gautham brings an air of effortless charm, much like the film’s laid-back protagonist, CI Dominic (Mammootty). The usual deliberate effort to establish a distinct voice or tone in his films is replaced by a sense of restraint and candidness, which, at times, makes the film feel a bit flat.

It is tempting to place Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi’s Kadhalikka Neramillai beside Mani Ratnam’s OK Kanmani. Yet, Kadhalikka Neramillai is more radical than the veteran’s take on modern romance. While the aesthetics of OK Kanmani cater to the day and age (like all of Mani Ratnam’s works), the film, which ponders a lot about the conventional marriage institution, ends up on a conservative note. Tara and Aditya of OK Kanmani toy with the idea of living together and defying social norms, but end up finding solace in the status quo of the institution. On the other hand, Kiruthika Udhayanidhi’s Kadhalikka Nermaillai might not share the superlative writing and finesse of Mani’s work, but the film is truly modern in thought.

Vanangaan is another addition to Bala’s list of tragedies that make the audience leave the theatre with a heavy heart. Above all, make them wonder: “Why does Bala do it every single time?" Perhaps, he aims to jolt the everyday people and show them the devastating side of life they choose to ignore. That’s why Bala’s protagonists are strangers. They don’t conform to the ways which are termed ‘normal’. Almost all of his protagonists – Pithamagan’s Chithan, Nandha, and Naan Kadavul’s Rudran–are taciturn and choose to interact less with society as their very existence is odd with the society they live in. Set in Kanyakumari, Vanangaan is about one such anomaly named Koti (Arun Vijay), a deaf and dumb ruffian, who is depicted as this beast with a heart.

It’s been a minute since a rom-com like Miss You was made in Tamil. It is not to say the film is rare or great, but it is just one of those old-school rom-coms that harps just on a straightforward story and drama. A kind that hasn’t been around for a while now. Directed by N Rajasekar, starring Siddharth and Ashika Ranganath in the lead roles, Miss You reminds you of the times when not every single release had to be unique or bearing a USP or having the need to cater to the whole nation. It has low stakes, featuring normal people, cliched songs, and fights that evoke a sense of nostalgia. The strong point of Miss You is that is aware of its limitations and contrivances. At one instance, when a character is forced to narrate the past, he lets out a disclaimer that the ‘flashback’ is going to feature a story within the story. That doesn’t absolve the film of its mistakes, but it is nice to know now and then that the filmmakers aren’t in a bubble.