Spoilers ahead…
Prakash Raj’s Un Samayalarayil is the love story of a man who is 90 and a woman who is 75. At least, that’s what it might look like to viewers of Tamil cinema who – exceptions like Pannaiyarum Padminiyum apart – are force-fed a diet of young love. (With that title, it’s hard to resist the culinary metaphor.) Actually, Kalidasan (Prakash Raj) is 45, and Gowri (Sneha) is in her 30s – and Un Samayalarayil is noteworthy just for proving that it is possible to make and obtain a wide release for a romance that is simmered on a slow fire and allowed to age. In the refreshing early portions, we aren’t invited to pity these singletons. They seem just fine. They have the company of family and friends (among them a well-assimilated gay man), and more importantly, they enjoy their work. He is, like his name suggests, a lover of antiquity – he’s an archaeologist. It isn’t much of a stretch to assume that he prefers dealing with the dead. And she’s a dubbing artist, which is exactly the kind of profession for someone with such a recessive personality. She’s content being heard.
That is what happens when, due to circumstances arising from a misdialed call, they begin to have conversations on the phone. They discover a shared passion for food, and she – despite protests that she’s not a very good cook – follows his instructions and pulls off an elaborate multi-tier cake. Un Samayalarayil is an adaptation of the Malayalam hit Salt N’Pepper, but it also recalls Cheeni Kum, which was a similar brew of two relatively older people discovering that they had a sweet tooth for one another. And so that the screen doesn’t begin to resemble something that Kalidasan might have excavated, we have a younger couple –Naveen (Tejus) and Meghna (Samyuktha Hornad). Due to reasons too involved to get into, Naveen and Meghna fall in love and in doing so, they sabotage the older romance. This is where the plot begins to curdle. We begin with a man and a woman who are united by their love for food, and we end up with a story of star-crossed lovers – we’ve jumped, in a heartbeat, from gastronomy to astronomy.
The problem, primarily, is one of tone. It becomes increasingly hard to figure out whether the film is a light comedy of errors or a more serious meditation on what Kalidasan eventually calls an “inferiority complex.” Naveen and Meghna come off as selfish – cruel, even – but we’re asked to treat them as we would merry pranksters. There’s no sense of consequence, nothing at stake. As a result, Un Samayalarayil ends up half-baked. I wanted to know more about Kalidasan. How does an archaeologist develop such a fine taste for cooking? And why is the second half so bereft of food? Emotions have to be built through character development (and not just through reaction shots) – you cannot play a sad song (the music is by Ilayaraja) and expect that feeling to settle over the rest of the film. Worse, we’re dragged through a completely redundant subplot about a kidnapped Adivasi man. It’s a pity. We walk out hungry for more.
KEY:
* Un Samayalarayil = in your kitchen
* Pannaiyarum Padminiyum = see here
* Salt N’Pepper = see here
* Cheeni Kum = see here
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2014 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
June 7, 2014
I thought the Adivasi man bit was originally put in there so that Kalidasan would realize the loss of a person in a way he could accept and understand: both Gowri and the Adivasi come into his life about the same time; he is in denial about love but is openly attached to the adivasi–losing the adivasi *might* make him face the pain of loss in a way he is willing to explore, with the results of such analysis giving him courage to try and reconnect with Gowri. If this is what was intended, it is seems twisted; it wasn’t executed properly, anyway. The second half was probably intended as tragic and mature suffering counterpointed with flippant romance; but, it seemed like they tried to dial down both, allowing things to degenerate into vague sentimentality.
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Bayta
June 7, 2014
How can you talk about older love on screen and not mention Mudhal Mariyadhai? It was the probably the most successful depiction of mature love in a Tamil movie, and not just in a commercial sense. It even had a subplot in it with two younger lovers as well.
This sounds like a potentially good idea watered down by the increasingly worrying trend in Tamil cinema to try and make every film cater to everyone. “Family-oda vandhu parunga” seems to be the most important message that every promotion stresses. I really hope they get over that and make films that stay true to their core idea/vision/subject.
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brangan
June 7, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: That’s an excellent comment. Are you a writer by any chance?
Yes, a lot of the stuff in this film we have to kinda guess what they were going for, as none of it is written/executed very well. I wonder how the Malayalam film handled these things. I looked it up on Wiki and the story seemed more or less the same, but I wonder how the treatment was.
Bayta: I was referring to recent Tamil cinema. In the 1980s, it wasn’t all that difficult to make these relatively offbeat love stories. Though I agree that “Mudhal Mariyadhai” is one of the most famous. Godly score — but not really a fan of the film as such. I think Bharathiraja’s best film of the 1980s is “Mann Vaasanai.”
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Girish Balakrishnan
June 7, 2014
Hi BR, came back from the move fairly underwhelmed. The sub-plot involving the Adivasi was not even quarter-baked and did precious little to move the narrative forward. As for the young couple, I thought they could not act to save their lives. While they could – and should – have invested far more seriousness into their parts, given what they do, all we got was loads of flippancy. And, on a slightly different note, I wonder why is it that the filmmaker is out to prove that the movie is shot in Madras (for instance, a scene towards the end when Prakash Raj pulls up right in front of a bank, which says Adyar branch) when it’s fairly evident that it’s been canned at B’lore. I fail to fathom what purpose this deceit serves. Is it that the Tamil audience will be less accepting of a movie should it be made explicit that it has been shot at a non-TN location?
I read your review of Manjapai immediately after going through the one on this flick. And seeing how you have shredded the former, I thought you let this one go with just a mild rebuke. If this was the only one you had to review this week, I’m sure you’d have been far more unsparing.
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Sutheesh Kumar
June 7, 2014
Dear BR Sir, you are in some fine form this weekend. Really enjoyed both the posts. Thank you.
@ Ashuthosh Mohan, excellent point there and appreciation from the Guru himself. WoW.
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Gradwolf
June 8, 2014
Waiting for someone to ask, “How/why you didn’t mention anything about Raaja saar’s music.”
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sai16vicky
June 8, 2014
@brangan : “Keladi Kanmani” portrayed this old-age romance in a mature and sensible way. The way SPB and Radhika fell in love, the way they called it off for the sake of his child and they way they carried on their feelings. And this movie was backed with some brilliant music(Raja again).
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Aman SM
June 8, 2014
Salt n Pepper had food in almost every frame or at least that’s how I remember it and I think even the director said it in an interview.Haven’t watched ‘Un Samayal Arayil’, but from your review it seems that most of it is a faithful adaptation to the original.Food in cinema is always fascinating and although we had food featured prominently in many films like ‘Stanely Ka Dabba’,’Salt n Pepper’, ‘Ustad Hotel’ and ‘The Lunchbox”, we don’t have an out and out foodie movie.
P.S : Sir, you were always talking about how we can’t see other regional cinema for the lack of subtitled releases. Anjali Menon’s Bangalore Days,which is already making the waves in Kerala, released with subtitles all over India.(More than 100 centers outside Kerala). It’s lot of fun and may be you should give it a go.
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brangan
June 8, 2014
Girish Balakrishnan: That’s the bane of these multilinguals. They won’t spend money on redoing everything, so there will be dubbing issues, lip-sync issues, location issues. It’s either the “chalta hai” attitude or the “namma makkalukku idhu porum” attitude.
Aman SM: Seeing it soon. Also saw “Manam,” which released here with subtitles. I hope these are not just one-offs and are the indications of a trend.
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
June 8, 2014
Baradwaj: @writer: aspring writer–quit science job, writing first novel etc.
@malayalam: Today, checked out the Malayalam version with subtitles. Its an entirely different film. There were tens of differences that made the film work for me. I haven’t really thought hard about it, but some of the obvious ones were:
1. Gowri (Maya in this film) is actually disgusted that, now that she is older, when she talks to men she only senses lust–not love. Apart from the fact that the phone conversations are underplayed in the Malayalam version, this point is a strong hint why instead of falling for one of the several men she meets everyday, she might actually fall for one she talks to on the phone.
2. The treatment of the Adivasi (Mookan) subplot is very different–the most significant difference was that Kalidasan’s coworker is instrumental in taking Mookan away from him. When Kalidasan boozes up and acts all tragic, Coworker tells him to dial it down: its not Mookan who his real problem but his loneliness. There is a nice twist relating to the excavation–coworker reveals that he had produced spurious evidence to dig up in that particular location because it allowed him to be closer to his childhood sweetheart (from decades back; now widowed). If only he had had the guts to elope with her back then, she would have come with him. Anyway, she is now going to move to some other place with her son, and he is going to make up some excuse to dig up near that place This man-to-man talk warms Kalidasan up to reconnect with Gowri, to not miss his one chance.
There is a really nice touch in a scene where Kalidasan mopes to his cook that the girl must be about 20 and so, he is too old for her. The cook tells him that if Rushdie can marry Padma Lakshmi why should he feel so conscious? Suddenly, men come into Kalidasan’s home to take Mookan away. His coworker, who comes along with them, is trying to convince Kalidasan that they can arrange protection for Mooking, he should allow him to be taken away. Kalidasan’s phone starts ringing and he goes blank for a few seconds and stops paying attention to coworker. Suddenly, he picks up the call (turns out it wasn’t Gowri). This hints at Kalidasan’s priorities.
Plus, Kalidasan’s reason for keeping Mookan at his place is not really i’m-fighting-for-truth-and-justice type ethical. Mookan wears an ancient earring of Persian origin which people are after. *Plus*, he has some recipes of forest dishes that Kalidasan wants to learn.
3. Romance between the younger couple is properly constructed as something like a comedy of errors. They finally learn about each other’s real identities through common friends they stumble upon in the climax (link with an earlier scene in the train where the guy makes a fool out of himself). This is consistent with their characters: they are instinctive, don’t really think carefully about anything, decide to run away; so, they aren’t going to tell each other the truth, unless someone does it for them.
Overall, it seemed to me like several changes were made to the original without really understanding its very precise construction, changes that didn’t add anything to the film at all. Its as if Prakash Raj wrote up all the elements of the Malayalam film in bits of paper, folded them up, randomly picked 100, and gave them each his own twist; in effect, he turned a lightning of a film into a lightning bug of a film.
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Bayta
June 8, 2014
@sai16vicky – Yes! I thought of “Keladi Kanmani” as a better example after posting my first comment.
Another Vasanth film “Rhythm” also came to mind. Though I didn’t really care for the latter much when I first watched it – the cop-out of killing Ramesh Arvind before he could consummate his marriage with Meena and thus leaving her “pure” annoyed the heck out of me – I came to appreciate it much more on later viewings for its sensitive treatment of the way two adults gradually fall for each other.
@brangan – Don’t really remember much about “Man Vaasanai” aside from the glorious soundtrack (that was, of course, IR’s peak period). Will have to rewatch it.
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Shankar
June 9, 2014
Baddy, I thought the malayalam film was pretty decent, nothing earth shattering, but a light film. I’m glad Ashutosh highlighted some differences that seem to indicate the treatment in the malayalam version was better. Perhaps Prakash Raj remake rights vaangi, room pottu yosichirupparo? 🙂
There are some aspects like the score I like about Mudhal Mariyadhai though I feel there’s a bit of spoon feeding going on in that film. Curious to know why you don’t like that film all that much…wanna talk about it?
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brangan
June 9, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: Thanks. So what Prakash Raj did was basically take the plot elements but not the reasons these plot elements were there in the first place. Kinda figures from the film.
Shankar: Dude, whether in Hollywood or Bollywood or Kollywood, a score’s job *is* to spoon-feed most of the time 🙂 Of course, if the composer is good, then this scoring becomes a great asset to the scene, in the way it heightens our emotions — but it’s still spoon-feeding. Ideally, IMO, if the writing and the acting is good, there should be no need for a score. (Note that I am saying “no need.” I’m not saying “there shouldn’t be a score.”)
As an example, take a scene in “Filmistaan” where a really senti conversation takes place between a man who’s been shot and a healer. You are in tears because the lines are so good, the acting is so good, and not because a violin is sawing away in the background asking you to cry.
About “Mudhal Mariyadhai,” I don’t know. I’m not saying it’s a bad film. Lots of nice scenes, especially the ones with Vadivukkarasi. But the whole film has this strained “poetic” quality that I don’t much care for. I think, in that generation, Mahendran did “poetry” best.
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sai16vicky
June 9, 2014
@Bayta: “Rhythm” is also another fine example. There are some beautiful scenes that come to my mind:
1. Arjun’s mom casually tells him over dinner – “Romba nalla payyan pa nee. Unakku konjam nalladhu nadakkalaam”. Her disappointment with the way her son’s life has shaped up in two sentences 😀
2. Nagesh has a conversation with Meena about marrying Arjun. She denies (in the denial too, she behaves like a grown up)and when Nagesh tells this to Arjun, he reacts like a grown up.
3. How Meena conveys her wish to marry Arjun through hints to her son – we will be in a single house n stuff. Quite well brought out!
I agree with the “pure” aspect but the treatment is at such an extent that even a stunt scene doesn’t seem really out-of-place.
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Shankar
June 10, 2014
Baddy, oops….I meant spoon feeding from the film’s perspective not the score. Read that comment as two pieces. Idhukkuthan naa ezhutha mattenu sollaren! Ha ha! 🙂
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Bayta
June 10, 2014
@brangan – I think you misread Shankar’s comment. Pretty sure he’s saying the movie has a lot of spoon-feeding in general but the score is one of the things he likes about the film.
@sai16vicky – Agree about all of those scenes. As for the purity bit, I have made peace with it now, but when I watched it I was still in the rebellious college mode and was quick to spot and take offense at that sort of tripe. In hindsight, there are far worse offenders in that respect. The one thing that really sticks out like a sore thumb for me in “Rhythm”, however, is the placement of the “Aiyo Pathikkichu” song. Arjun’s character is portrayed as this mature, sensible, responsible guy throughout the film, and yet when baby-sitting that kid, he chooses to take him along to a show like that?
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nsranganathan
June 10, 2014
@Batya: “…the cop-out of killing Ramesh Arvind before he could consummate his marriage with Meena and thus leaving her “pure” annoyed the heck out of me”
Touche!
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Bayta
June 23, 2014
@Ashutosh Mohan – Thanks much for your post listing the differences between the two versions. I watched the malayalam movie yesterday sans subtitles and the adivaasi subplot made no sense whatsoever to me. Your post clarifies it nicely and now it all makes sense to me. I thought the movie was a nicely done romcom with a somewhat unusual, and very refreshing, choice of protagonists. I felt nothing but annoyance for the younger couple, which I believe was the intended effect. Could have done without their duet, but I guess that sort of thing is unavoidable in mainstream cinema still. And this was clearly meant to be a mainstream movie. Overall, it was enjoyable, but nothing spectacular. Still it has its real moments and for that, and for paving the way for similar out-of-the-box movies, I applaud it.
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Rahini David
June 8, 2015
Only now did I get to see this movie
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crusader33
February 19, 2016
This movie is not even a patch on Salt and Pepper, the original Malayalam movie. I don’t know why everything, even the emotions get blown up in the transition from Malayalam to Tamil.
Even scenes that are copied from the original movie are soulless and very contrived. For example the scene in which the girls are getting drunk on the terrace. In the original Shweta Menon is drunk and she tells the girls about her horoscope has messed up her prospects of marriage. In the Tamil version, Sneha prevents Urvashi from getting too drunk and her dialogue make her seem like shes absolutely desperate. Good girls in Tamil movies don’t get drunk,eh?? Or do they only get drunk so that they can sing a hiccup filled song and seduce the hero etc.
Even the car the hero drives in Salt and Pepper, an antique Fiat,has more character than Un Samayal Arayil!!!
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