Srinivasa Ramanujam

Pray, what is love? Is it in the initial attraction that happens between two individuals? Is it in the sweet nothings that they share?

A few years ago, in 2022, came along a nondescript Tamil film titled Kuruthi Aatam, starring Atharvaa. I wrote in my review about this sophomore film from 8 Thotakkal filmmaker Sri Ganesh: “The biggest problem of Kuruthi Aattam is its desire to pack many things into its already-long 149-minute narrative. There’s just too much happening too soon here.” With his latest film, 3BHK,Sri Ganesh sorts this issue out. The first sequence gets you right into the story — and this elaborates what the trailer already beautifully showcased — Vasudevan (Sarath Kumar) and his family want to build a home. Can they? This 140-minute cinematic effort goes into answering this singular question. And as it does that, it veers into the individual journeys of the lead characters — Vasudevan (Sarath Kumar), Prabhu (Siddharth), Shanthi (Devayani) and Aarthi (Meetha Ragunath).

A family is trying to flee Sri Lanka and lands up in Rameshwaram, only to get noticed by the cops. They are picked up in a police van. The mood is sombre. But what follows is a really funny five-minute sequence that sets the tone for the entire film. It can be argued that Dharmadas (Sasikumar) is this movie’s hero, but the script does not have a single protagonist; rather, it’s this entire family of four that forms the fulcrum of the script. Director Abishan Jeevinth’s Tourist Family is all about boundaries and ways to break them. A Sri Lankan family with fake documentation has arrived in a Chennai colony, which has, among other people, a grumpy man who rarely socialises, a drunkard who keeps getting yelled at, and a girl wanting to move abroad but changing her mind. That all these characters live together and are close-knit makes things interesting. Remember director Radha Mohan’s Mozhi? The first half of Tourist Family reminds one of that 2007 Tamil film, just in terms of feeling and flavour.

The opening stretch of Raghu Thathatakes us back to the ‘60s. Even as the opening credits roll, we are shown newspaper clippings of important developments in that period. Anti-Hindi slogans and protests are rampant in Tamil Nadu, a state that is furiously vocal against the imposition of Hindi. Indira Gandhi has taken over as the first woman Prime Minister of the country, something that should ideally given women across the country a lot more confidence and freedom.

Early in Minmini, inside a school during a chilly evening at Ooty, a candle goes off. A student offers to light it up with his candle. “When one candle lights up another, there’s no loss,” someone remarks.

Around halfway of the second episode of the latest season of The Test, drama erupts. English batter Jonny Bairstow ducks a bouncer, the ball goes to the keeper and the batter walks out of the crease. Pretty much a normal thing that happens during a Test match, you’d think. But there’s tense music in the background, almost like you know something is going to happen.