Spoilers ahead…
As sarakku scenes go, it’s the usual scenario. Two men get drunk. One of them talks about the girl who ditched him, the one that ran away. The other one talks about the girl he loved, the one that got away. (In Tamil cinema, the woman is always the heartbreaker, the man always the one left nursing his broken heart.) You’d think the conversation is between Siva (Simbu) and Vasu (Soori) – isn’t that why heroes have best friends? But it’s actually two older men talking, Siva’s father and the father of the girl Siva is engaged to (Myla, played by Nayanthara). If you’re wondering, as I was, why Siva isn’t shown with a bottle in his hand, here’s a theory. The first time he sees Myla, he’s struck by her beauty. He tells Vasu, “Paathadhukke full adicha maadhiri irukku.” Siva doesn’t need intoxicants. He’s drunk on love.
As, some might say, Simbu is. The actor has made no secret about his love life, and Pandiraj’s Idhu Namma Aalu comes off like gossipy fan-fiction written by one of the actor’s fans who really, really wanted him to be with Nayanthara. (They called off their relationship some years ago.) At one point, Myla asks Simbu, “Love pannirkeengala?” – you have to wonder how sporting these actors are, and also what ran through their minds while shooting the scene. Later, Siva/Simbu says, “Ellaarum en love-a vachu comedy pannreenga.” And what to make of the Loosu penne reference? Is that…? Could that be…?
Idhu Namma Aalu is the story of a couple that gets together through an arranged-marriage setup, and Pandiraj captures the natural moments that occur in such a situation – the getting-to-know-you part, the does-she-have a past? part, the hours-and-hours-on-the-phone part, the going-on-long-drives-with-Ilayaraja-songs part… Pandiraj is trying to make a young, cool film. When Siva talks about his ex Pooja, played by Andrea Jeremiah, a corner of the screen shows the text “FLASHBACK LOADING,” along with the icon of a battery-like device “loading” this flashback. A lot of this works fairly well. The dialogues are fun, though you wish they’d give lines with rhyming words (privacy/paradesi) a rest. And Soori is a riot. He delivers a running commentary about the Siva-Myla romance, pricking their mushy speech balloons with sardonic barbs.
But he also prevents the film from becoming something better, something greater. When Mani Ratnam or Gautham Menon does the urban romance, you don’t just smile. You wince. You keep watching a parallel movie in your head, one made from memories. They make love stories that are real, and become reference points for a certain kind of movie-love. Pandiraj, on the other hand, doesn’t even take the time to savour the romantic situations. The night that Siva and Pooja spend in a store after they find themselves locked in, or the multiple marriages that end the film – these should have been way more awww-some.
Pandiraj’s aims are modest. He just wants the audience to be entertained while watching the movie – and that’s perfectly legit. But the problem is that the relative real-ness of the Siva-Myla portions is compromised by terribly contrived events, like Vasu hiring a detective to check up on Myla, or the in-laws getting into a fight after a drink, or even an attempt at suicide. After a while, you get the feeling Pandiraj is throwing these things at us simply because he did not know how else to bring about conflict. Even Myla’s temporary break-up with Siva looks less a genuine moment of crisis in a relationship than something that will lead to a dramatic interval point. What’s worse is that these conflicts are resolved very simplistically. But Simbu and Nayanthara are in good form, and they keep us watching. And wondering.
KEY:
- sarakku = booze
- “Paathadhukke full adicha maadhiri irukku.” = Just looking at her is like having a peg.
- “Love pannirkeengala?” = Have you been in love?
- “Ellaarum en love-a vachu comedy pannreenga.” = My love life has become a joke.
- Loosu penne = see here
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2016 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
shaviswa
May 27, 2016
Looks like Pandiaraj banked more on the Simbu-Nayan pairing than content!
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Sanjay Shankar (@sanjayshankar)
May 27, 2016
I didn’t understand why there was a ‘Kutti Puli’ link in the key section. There’s no mention of it anywhere in the review.
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Arun Prakash
May 27, 2016
” When Mani Ratnam or Gautham Menon does the urban romance, you don’t just smile. You wince. You keep watching a parallel movie in your head, one made from memories”
Wow !
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Pato
May 27, 2016
Romantic portions of this movie are extremely artificial and boring but it was made up due to all the references that were made to real life of simbu and soori’s comedy.As BR said,director didn’t have a clear idea to bring conflicts in both the love stories of nayan and Andrea.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
May 27, 2016
Can’t believe, it’s been ten years since Vallavan was released – time has just flown away!
Soori is one lucky actor.
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Anuja Chandramouli
May 28, 2016
Damn it… This film could have been awesome! If only the editor had showed some steel, made like Edward Scissorhands and snipped off that godawful mamman waiting item number, hackneyed melodramatic bits, the ridiculous scene with Jai and Andrea… What a film Idhu Namma Allu could have, should have, would have been!
Mani Ratnam and Gautam Menon would have benefited from such a masterclass on the perfect romcom. But still its STR’s best work in ages. There is some consolation in that I suppose.
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Anuja Chandramouli
May 28, 2016
One thing that really got my goat! So we have this whole is this real or reel thing going on with Simbu vis – a- vis his love life but with Nayan though, she had to be the good girl clad only in saris and salwars, who has never been in love and intends to dutifully give her heart to the dude her parents have chosen for a groom. Duh!!! ( I rolled my eyes so hard at that the eyeballs vanished into my hairline).
It is no secret that Nayan has also had a colorful love life, so there ought not to be any need for anybody to shroud it within a pristine cloud of purity. Not to mention hypocrisy. Besides the movie would have been more fun, if the real/reel thing had been incorporated into the heroine’s role as well.
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blurb
May 28, 2016
So, there’s this meta moment between ex-lovers that I thought was totally a marketing gimmick. Deepika says to Ranbir in the Yeh Jawaani trailer that if she spends two more minutes with him, she would fall in love. AGAIN. And he wouldn’t. AGAIN.
That was a well placed marketing gimmick. Although it was pleasantly surprising that movie was not meta at all. 🙂
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Adithya
May 28, 2016
Bad review
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
May 29, 2016
BR:
This movie sounds alternatively exasperating and entertaining and finally ends in exasperating like not having had enough to eat in a fancy restaurant.
Sometimes it takes a fairly bad one to pull out the knives and produce an entertaining review like this one.
cheers ! (Hic)
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Karthic S
May 30, 2016
Pooja or Priya? Can’t believe you missed it.
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Sifter
June 3, 2016
One thing that got your goat. Lol. You should know by now that most of the Tamil movie heroines should always be that goody two shoes, if she isn’t she’ll have to be turned around by the hero to suit his needs of a naive, worshiping dolt, kiddish, without any depth so on and so forth. After all she exists solely to cater to the ‘(m)ass’ needs.
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