Spoilers ahead…
The screenplay is filled with ‘VIP’-like clichés, and it works because each cliché is put across so well by this cast and this director.
Mithran Jawahar’s Thiruchitrambalam is named after the lead character played by Dhanush. Thiru liked a girl in school, but he stepped aside because he felt she was out of his league. Later, too, as a grown-up, when he sees her as a woman, he doesn’t go up and say hello. It may be low self-esteem. It may be the fact that he did not go to college and he’s now a food-delivery guy and he thinks she is still out of his league, given that she lives in a posh flat and orders food worth thousands of rupees. Or it may be it’s the fact that there is something broken about him. That is the film’s first line, which we hear in Thiru’s voiceover: Life is like a piece of glass. Even a small crack makes it break. That small crack in Thiru’s life is a tragedy that occurred when he was a boy, and his life stays broken despite the best efforts of his neighbour and best friend, Shobana, played by Nithya Menen.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/tamil/movie/review/thiruchitrambalam/
And you can watch the video review here:
Copyright ©2022 GALATTA.
Baradwaj Rangan 
therag
August 19, 2022
“Anirudh’s loveliest song, Megam karukkadha”
The song is very pleasing to the ears and the arrangements are very good, but I feel a lot of Anirudh’s melodies sound the same. Perhaps Dhanush shares some blame here but even the ones Anirudh has sung feel same-ish to me.
I remember when Harris Jayaraj used to get dumped on for his raga-similarity or general “sameness” to the songs, yet Anirudh seems to have escaped that?
He does have a talent for mass-movie BGM, I have to give him that. Perhaps the best in the business right now.
The Anirudh-sung song that I like the most is probably Mersalayitten.
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vijay
August 19, 2022
“yet Anirudh seems to have escaped that?”
No, Its just that nobody has the time or cares about that kind of stuff anymore..anything flies in today’s music, music has taken a firm backseat..the fact that Dhanush wrote as well as sung this sums up the present scenario..which song of Vikram would you revisit 10 years from now? Pathala pathala? the original Vikram had a couple of songs I could revisit even now
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Sri Prabhuram
August 19, 2022
Surpised at the positive review here considering that the previous actor-director collaborations were remakes of popular Telugu films like Arya and Ready.
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Sri Prabhuram
August 19, 2022
Then again, Mohan Raja and Jayam Ravi gave us Thani Oruvan.
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Vignaprasad
August 19, 2022
I never thought that this film would work. I severely judged this by that pathetic trailer – it showed this girl bestie, middle class, villain appa (hopefully worshipping at end), friendly thatha, two heroines – one from the countryside (you can say traditional) other from chennai (modern), first kiss, 90’s kids, “Hero va ivaru” dialogue and what not (I’m not going to disparage this DnA combo coz I love them from the start). Anyways I’m happy if it works, excited, yet to see the film.
Fans and critics are concerned about the film, what about trailers? So many bad trailer cuts (Including PS-1) keep emerging and intended to target this “mainstream” audience.
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Voldemort
August 19, 2022
He gives us Anirudh’s loveliest song, Megam karukkadha, like a dance number from a 1950s Hollywood musical.
Or, like Vennilave Vennilave from Minsara Kanavu. Even the place seemed similar.
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Ananth
August 19, 2022
Genuinely surprised by the unanimous good reviews the movie’s gotten(Even Blue Sattai!). Can’t remember the last time that happened. I was not expecting much even though I liked the Trailer and liked the director’s OTT effort Mathil.
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anonymousviolin20
August 20, 2022
An enjoyable watch.
I think one of the films greatest strengths is that even when I wasn’t sure the plot was going anywhere, I felt like I could keep watching the characters forever. Like I got my own personal view up and close with this little world (incidentally, Nitya Menen made a similar remark about the film at the audio launch).
Besides Dhanush and Nitya Menen, I also loved Bharatiraja’s performance as the sympathetic grandfather.
I hope this film at least picks up compared to Ante Sundaraniki (another rom-com I enjoyed this year)
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krishikari
August 20, 2022
I hope this film at least picks up compared to Ante Sundaraniki (another rom-com I enjoyed this year)
I enjoyed it too, after an uncertain start, the message movie rom-rom is a new Indian genre perhaps. Nazriya is always so good.
Waiting for Thiruchitrambalam to hit OTT. No hope it will come to any theatre near me.
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Raj
August 20, 2022
SPOILERS AHEAD
BR, did you not have an issue of making Dhanush and Nithya Menon a couple? Considering that there were a lot of progressive ideas in the movie, did the end just reiterated the dated concept that opposite genders can never be actual friends?
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Sanjay Shankar (@sanjayshankar)
August 20, 2022
The songs were ok. I don’t even mind that Anirudh repeated tunes from previous DnA outings. What’s up with all these singers and the way they pronounce Thamizh words, that too in their mother tongue? Their pronunciation reminds me of Thenga Srinivasan saying ‘Zhana varaadhu, shaana varaadhu, aana peru mattum Subramanya Bharathi’.
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KayKay
August 21, 2022
For me Anirudh is the perfect “Spotify” composer. I sample his song for like 30 seconds then track skip to the next, the next, the next…once in awhile coming across a number I want to add to my playlist. It takes me a sweep of about half a dozen albums to maybe get 5 tracks I can listen to repeatedly. He’s produced a couple of banger songs but never a banger ALBUM (for me) which still puts him a long way from Raaja or Rahman at their peak. But he does seem to have a knack of composing cracking scores or themes.
Let’s see…if people are still listening to “Aaluma Doluma”, “Arabi Kuthu” or “Dippam Dippam” in 10 years, I’ll give him his due:-)
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shaviswa
August 21, 2022
@KayKay
“Let’s see…if people are still listening to “Aaluma Doluma”, “Arabi Kuthu” or “Dippam Dippam” in 10 years, I’ll give him his due:-)”
People do not listen to these songs even today 🙂
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Satya
August 21, 2022
Raj: Now that you have revealed the ending, I think it is safe that I add something too. Yes, it felt forced but not everything about it. What I didn’t like was the younger brother’s scene a day after Shobana leaves for Canada. That reveal completely ruins what seemed like a slow discovery of what was hiding in plain sight, which Thiru and Shobana could not see coming all this while. But, by then, the film won over me. So it didn’t bother me that much.
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brangan
August 21, 2022
KayKay: ‘Dippam dappam’ still gets decent airplay. (That’s a major indicator of a song’s popularity, because stations won’t play songs that don’t fetch them advertiser revenue, which depends on the number of people who don’t change the station and listen to that song.) I’d say ‘Aaluma diluma’ is like ‘Vaadi en kappa kazhangey’, for example. A huge momentary craze. (Thinking aloud: Does ARR have any of these types of ‘dappankuthu’ songs? Thinking aloud, because I can’t recall anything instantly. His production makes everything sound sophisticated 🙂 )
But the bigger point is that, today, music has become temporary. I love SaNa to death, and ‘Aasai oru pulveli’ still works for me, but let’s talk about ‘Bujji’. I was addicted to it for a week, kept playing it on loop — and that was it. I am not talking about the QUALITY of composers/songs. I am talking about the volume of information we get, including music.
The MSV / Raja / Rahman / or even till Yuvan-generation songs had time to get ‘imprinted’ on our brains — because that was all we’d hear a lot of the time, until the next batch of songs from these composers came. Now, there’s a single being released each day, and a song has to be REALLY good for us to keep revisiting it despite all the songs that came after it. And REALLY good songs are hard to come by.
It’s also time. There was a transistor time and a tape-recorder time and a walkman/discman time when listening to music was a solo pursuit. (And that helped a lot in those songs getting “imprinted.”) Now, music is one of hundred things in the background. All the twentysomethings I know have a very different relationship with music, and I know people who call themselves the ‘GV Prakash’ generation and love all his songs the way an earlier generation loved Rahman’s.
So now it’s the ‘Anirudh generation’ and it’s not for us. Take ‘Rendu kaadhal’ from the same film. I find it pleasant, but that wall of sound behind the melody lines kinda makes the song sound overdone in a generic way. But when I watch the song in a theatre, it works. And that is all most people want. A few days of YouTube listening and for the song to sound good while the movie is on.
Like MSV’s music has disappeared, Raja’s will, Rahman’s will… Even now most youngsters who claim to worship Raja name ‘Sundari’ or some such song from a “famous” film, as opposed to say, something from Garjanai or Karayellaam Shenbagapoo or even Mudhal Mariyadhai and Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal (whose songs I personally don’t care much for). Ask a twentysomething Rahman fan and they will also name songs from the “famous” films, as opposed to a Meenaxi or Delhi-6 or whatever. I do believe the hardcore music-lovers and song competitions on TV will keep these songs alive, but the for the rest of the listeners (i.e. the majority) these songs will all slip off the ‘mainstream radar’. Just like the ‘GV Prakash generation’ and the ‘Anirudh generation’ (they call themselves ‘Anirudhians’) , newer composers will entice generations in ways older people like us will not quite get.
FWIW, when it comes to Anirudh, I still listen occasionally to ‘Naana thaana’ (always makes me smile) or ‘Osaka’… I think he is talented. I just wish he’d push himself a little more out of his comfort zone. Used to like Vijay Antony’s songs quite a bit, but I guess he doesn’t compose that much anymore. SaNa’s Pariyerum Perumal album is a masterpiece. I also love ‘Aval’, ‘Azhagiya soodana poove’ and a whole bunch of others.
But what I love about Tamil music now is the massive improvement of the quality of lyrics — people like Karthik Netha, Kabilan (in his films for Ranjith, especially), all post-Thamarai generation. There’s some truly amazing stuff out there.
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brangan
August 21, 2022
Satya: SPOILERS AHEAD
Yeah, I hated that bit about the younger brother. It made her feelings feel like a long-time pining and it was a disservice to her very practical nature. Plus, it really went against the low-key nature of the rest of the film. But they wanted a strong “cinematic” finish – who knows! 🙂
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Madan
August 21, 2022
Not Tamil, but I do remember the title track of ADHM and Channa Mere Aa. Also bunch of tracks here and there over the years like Moh Moh Ke Daage, Ik Kudi, Mar Jaayein Hum, Deewani Mastani, Taare Ginn, Rait Zara Si. The problem is also that films now use songs as something playing over the background while a montage flashes on the screen. People don’t want to use music that stops the film in its tracks so the songs playing over the montage necessarily have to blend into the background. The other category is like Anirudh’s kuthu songs (or Breakup Kar Liya from the same ADHM which I haven’t felt the need to hear a single time after seeing the film). These songs again are now geared to be perfect for DJ playlists while earlier they needed to have melody and arrangements and it was only the beat that was faster.
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vijay
August 21, 2022
“people like Karthik Netha, Kabilan (in his films for Ranjith, especially), all post-Thamarai generation.”
Kabilan has been around from long back I think..didnt he write ‘yegiri kudhithen…ale ale’ in Boys..the lines caught my attention back then despite the catchy tune ..and before that un samayal arayil in Dhil and Aalanguyil koovum rail for Vidyasagar..due to various reasons somehow the industry did’nt fully utilize Thaamarai in the 2000s..Even Rahman stuck to Vaali for the longest time
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vijay
August 21, 2022
Talking of lyrics, Na. Muthukumar’s premature death was a big loss..
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vijay
August 21, 2022
“I think he is talented. I just wish he’d push himself a little more out of his comfort zone. ”
why does he have to? He is related to Rajni and Dhanush..Cut him some slack
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Honest Raj
August 21, 2022
Thinking aloud: Does ARR have any of these types of ‘dappankuthu’ songs?
Here’s this little-known gem from my most favourite phase in ARR’s career:
Also, I believe, “Edhukku Pondatti” was a super duper hit back then.
About Anirudh, you can either love him or hate him, but can’t ignore him. 🙂 He’s undeniably the superstar composer of today.
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Macaulay Perapulla
August 21, 2022
@Honest Raj This was a fun find, although it reminds me of the recent “Aasai Adhigam Vechu” remake he did. IMO ARR can only do smarmy kuthu numbers which make fun of the genre while playing by its rules. He can’t do full fledged kuthu numbers. Period. Adhukku innoru deva porakkanum. Are there any fans of Deva’s Virumbugiren album here? One of the most underrated albums. The koothu numbers are timeless in this movie. At least for me. 🙂
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kaizokukeshav
August 21, 2022
Anirudh definitely re-established his superiority with Vikram. It was such a refreshing take and almost created a cult fan base.
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therag
August 21, 2022
@KayKay and others, has Anirudh even hit the peak of Harris or Yuvan (not in terms of being the marquee composer, but in producing albums like 7G Rainbow Colony or Vaaranam Aayiram) ? Adhuve konjam doubta irukku yenakku.
I think Anirudh’s strongest album is still “3”.
SaNa has multiple strong albums – Pariyerum Perumal, Karnan, Irudhi Suttru
Ghibran did Uttama Villan. Plus he’s made really good songs like Kannukkul Pothivaippen, Vina Vina (Papanasam).
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Enna koduka sir pera
August 21, 2022
Agree completely with what Kay Kay said about Anirudh’s music.
Regarding Kabilan and Karthik Netha’s lyrics, any recommendations for ecent lyrics of theirs that are good?
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Satya
August 21, 2022
BR: Maybe true, but when you remove that sequence completely from the screenplay, it would still be a very effective cinematic finish. For a guy like Thiru, at least based on what we get to see, it is a big deal that he lands at her overseas office before her out of nowhere after a month. The inclusion of that sequence actually feels like a cheap shot at melodrama and, like you said, goes against the film’s tone and nature.
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Eswar
August 21, 2022
Enna koduka sir pera:
Not recent ones exactly. These are some of Karthik Netha’s lyrics that I like:
Ithuvum Kadanthu Pogum from Netrikkan.
Pularaadha from Dear Comrade
Anthaathi, Life of Ram from 96
Wiki says ‘Poraney Poraney’ from ‘Vaagai Sooda Vaa’ also is Karthik Netha. I knew only today 🙂
On the topic of lyrics, any likes or dislikes for Elango Krishnan’s work in PS1? I have heard them only a couple of times.
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Amrin
August 22, 2022
Dhanush nd Nithya comba🥰🥰❤️Good friendship …Movie made a good feel .Mass Song ,cute dance of megham Kakukatha.lovely ,,nd hard work of directors,… Fabulous man ☺️ dhanush 🔥🔥
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KS
August 22, 2022
There’s actually a “GV Prakash generation”?? These guys must be 20-somethings, and they skipped right past ARR, Yuvan, Harris, and others, and settled on GV Prakash, eh? Damn, I must have really missed something. I always dismissed GV Prakash as one of those also-ran sideshows of the 2000s (like the innumerable sideshows we had in the 90s, like Sirpy, Aadithya), and never imagined he would be anyone’s favourite composer. Not saying his music is bad, just…unremarkable and forgettable. I can’t recollect any song of his that ever caught my attention, leave alone an album. Even Vijay Antony or SA Rajkumar have more recall value. And no, its not because I’m old, given I enjoy a decent bit of Anirudh or SaNa who came after.
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KS
August 22, 2022
@Macaulay Perapula:
” IMO ARR can only do smarmy kuthu numbers which make fun of the genre while playing by its rules. He can’t do full fledged kuthu numbers. Period.”
I see what you mean, but is that a problem? I mean, honestly do you guys even like kuthu songs? Don’t they sound very crass, and an assault on the ears, with very little musical elegance? I prefer ARR or Harris or Yuvan lend some degree of palatability to that trashy genre by infusing it with their musical sensibilities, even if that makes it less authentic. When I said this to a friend, he called me a casteist snob.
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brangan
August 22, 2022
KS: Yup. This is a term I learnt from my then 26-year-old assistant. Born in the mid-90s. He is crazy about songs like “Naan sonnadhum mazhai vandhicha.” And BTW, GV Prakash also happens to be Vetri Maaran’s favourite composer, and the ASURAN songs were big hits 🙂
It’s essentially the “teen factor” at work. The music you listen to in your teens/20s becomes your default setting. Because it’s not just the music but also the nostalgia value attached to it: every event in your life, so fresh and new, whether success or failure, has a song to go along with it.
So one can only look at music from our own POV / internal settings developed at an early stage of life — and may not “get” why newer generations like certain things.
Of course, in my case,I keep up with new music not just because I love music but also (mainly) because of my JOB — but I have a lot of friends who are content in their MSV / Raja / some early ARR / RD Burman / SD Burman bubble (no judgement at all) and can’t keep up with the huge inflow of new music. In a parallel universe where I was still doing corporate stuff, I might have been like them 🙂
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brangan
August 22, 2022
One of my favourite kuthu songs 🙂 Malaysia Vasudeven in this mode is just terrific. Actually, this whole album is terrific, one of Shankar Ganesh’s best!
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Cholan Raje
August 22, 2022
@KS Partly agreed. Don’t know and don’t care if this makes me elitist, but songs like “Kanda Vara Sollunga” and “Adi En Gana Mayil” are so annoying. Harris always coats his kuthu songs with an urban, classy sheen and smoothens the edges characteristic of the genre, which is why we end up with bangers like “Arumuga Samikku” from him.
That being said, ARR’s kuthus aren’t much better than the “authentic” ones. Aalaporan Tamizhan, Mersal Arasan and Peter Beatu Yethu sound like random sounds forced together in a grinder.
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Yajiv
August 22, 2022
Managed to catch this in the theatre and it felt so good to see a soft low-key movie like this in the big screen. So much for this running commentary that the audience expects “mass” and “bigness” at the theatres.
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anonymousviolin20
August 23, 2022
There was a brief period around 2013 ish when I considered myself a GV Prakash fan.
This was around when he had Aadukalam, Mayakkam Enna, Thaandavam, Thalaivaa, and Raja Rani (all of which I still enjoy today). Then he got into acting, Anirudh/SaNa came to the fore, and that was it for him.
Loved his duets with Saindhavi around this time. I still maintain that he is one of the best singers for a music director in Tamil (along with Imman).
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Prat
August 23, 2022
Aayirathil Oruvan was a great album from GV. Top notch and an intriguing period sound. But after he started acting, it’s difficult to take him seriously as a musician. I don’t know why. His work hasn’t stood out recently.
For me, Ghibran, Justin Prabhakaran, Sam CS, Tenma, Prashanth Pillai, Govind Vasantha, Darbuka Siva, Girishh G and Sean Roldan are the most exciting composers right now. But they are not super consistent and it’s difficult for them because the concept of music albums as a cultural commodity has vanished into thin air. With the current singles release culture (I’d expected an album release for a Ponniyin Selvan at least but nope) and the diminishing value of songs in our movies it is just gonna go downhill sighh.
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Prat
August 23, 2022
Not to mention these music directors themselves butchering half the songs by singing it themselves – SaNa, Anirudh, Yuvan, even ARR with Ponni Nadhi now. Or giving it to the likes of Dhanush.
@Honest Raj – I love Barotta Barotta and I’m very surprised to find it mentioned here 😀 I never thought of it as dappanguththu but now that you mention that, it is!
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Prat
August 23, 2022
I’m a twenty something and we have all not gone over to the dark side I can promise! 🙂
Meenaxi is among my top 3 ARR albums. I used to be a Rahmaniac and I still do keep track of everything he composes but the spark is gone and I’m kinda amused and disappointed by Rahman’s current return to “simple” melodies – they lack the Rahman stamp and sound and daring.
I couldn’t appreciate Ilayaraja the way the previous generation does though (I recently listened to Virumaandi album for the first time and I was stunned at how amazing it was, so maybe there’s still hope). I LOVE Sanah Moidutty’s rendition of Ore Naal Unai Naan – I was addicted to it for months when it came out (same with the new Per Vechaalum Vekkaama), so I think someone should be modernizing Ilayaraja’s good songs and releasing them regularly as their full time job. He might just become all the rage all over again! I also love Early Harris and the occasional Yuvan, and that could be attributed to the teen effect as you mention.
I keep up with new music from all 4 southern languages plus Hindi and the occasional Marathi/Bengali. But I am exception than the case and very few of my friends listen to music as a habit like I do.
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brangan
August 23, 2022
Prat: There is no “dark side” or anything. In fact, given how quickly things change, it would be a miracle to expect GenZ kids to still be listening to older composers and setting their “standards” of “good music” according to styles that were in vogue even 30 years ago, when Rahman came in – leave alone the composers before him. Change is inevitable and we are just discussing that 🙂
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Madan
August 23, 2022
It’s no different from how it’s mainly cinephiles who are going to be interested in watching older films. I may or may not have mentioned this before but my father introduced me to old HFM when I was eight or nine and it was supremely unfashionable at that time in school to NOT listen to Anu Malik or NS or JL. If anything, there’s more acceptance today for older music because YouTube and social media have changed the ecosystem from what it used to be. Earlier you got your fix of music from radio and TV channels and they all promoted new, new, new in prime time with only select windows where they played old songs.
In fact, I don’t think it’s very healthy for the ecosystem to push older music to the top of the pile. If the new stuff doesn’t sell, the marketplace for new musicians will collapse as well. So things MUST keep changing. That doesn’t mean I am going to give Anirudh’s music the time of day but that’s my taste. And it’s not like I don’t listen to brand new music. It’s just (usually) not anything you would find in a new film or the Billboard Top 10. But I have been playing Phir Na Aisi Raat Aayegi on loop for the last few days. I haven’t revisited but Jai Bhim songs worked a treat for me.
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Ravi K
August 23, 2022
Prat: “With the current singles release culture (I’d expected an album release for a Ponniyin Selvan at least but nope) and the diminishing value of songs in our movies it is just gonna go downhill sighh.”
I don’t think Indian soundtrack albums even get CD releases anymore. Just streaming and perhaps downloads. Just like how Indian movies no longer get DVD/Blu-Ray releases.
Not living in India, I rarely get to stumble onto new music. It’s not like I’m exposed to it on TV or radio (does anyone listen to the radio these days?) ARR is the only composer whose new music I await and make it a point to listen to. Of the newer gen I did try to catch as many SaNa albums as possible for a while. I don’t necessarily dislike the current composers’ music. I think it usually goes well with the films. But I don’t listen to a lot of it outside of the films. I am closer to 40 than to 30, in case you couldn’t tell from this post!
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tamil thanos
August 23, 2022
SaNa is too good IMO and often underutilized except for a handful of directors. and I think he is the only director after AR Rahman with a similar range. Let’s not forget that this guy gave the most iconic Rajini song in recent times and the best since … Padayappa?
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yuvi
August 23, 2022
“It’s essentially the “teen factor” at work. The music you listen to in your teens/20s becomes your default setting. Because it’s not just the music but also the nostalgia value attached to it: every event in your life, so fresh and new, whether success or failure, has a song to go along with it.”
OMG. That makes sense. i used to wonder why people here go on and on about some old, mediocre ilayaraa or Rahman songs that sounds so dated while there are much better songs that has come after their times. There are multiple posts and long comments deifying some old songs and paragraphs written about their greatness while I find nothing special in them.
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Madan
August 23, 2022
yuvi : Well, that would depend on whether you are calling the songs mediocre because you didn’t like them or actually found them lacking in merit on some grounds that you are able to define. Otherwise what you’re describing sounds like the mirror image of an older listener dismissing ‘indhakalathu paatu’. It’s equally a knee jerk reaction to write off older film music.
I only got into hip hop in my early 30s (arm 36 now). So it’s entirely possible to not be stuck nostalgically to whatever one liked in their twenties (and somehow I feel the surveys that insist this is impossible never talk to any musophiles, like not even one). But that depends on whether you approach music with a sense of curiosity and adventure or you treat it as comfort food and want it to be immediately appealing to you without you making any effort to get to terms with it.
I have started to delve into nu jazz now and there will be plenty more goodies that way. As a fan of Ilayaraja and Rahman, I have no idea why people would want to restrict their lifetime musical experience to only those two composers. That’s almost like learning the opposite lesson of what the composers conveyed through their music – to push boundaries and discover new horizons.
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KS
August 23, 2022
@brangan:
I totally agree, and this is something I have written about too in other comments. Music hits different when you’re young- especially late teens and early twenties. The songs become the soundtrack for your own imagination and the biopic starring you. And when you’re older, those specific songs form the montage soundtrack of your memories. But these days music just doesn’t do anything for me, and has the same impact as elevator music.
“Of course, in my case,I keep up with new music not just because I love music but also (mainly) because of my JOB” How do you do this? I mean, keeping up is one thing, and anyone can keep up on info just with wikipedia. But if our brains have stopped reacting to music in an evocative way, are we even qualified to pass judgment on it? Its like a blind person judging paintings. At least that is uniformly objective in a useless way, but in our case, we might enjoy new songs that evoke memories of out teen songs, ending up overvaluing them unfairly.
Does this aging effect work also with movies? Or is music more primal in that sense? Do you think as we age, we lose that evocative connect with movies/music, and will be reduced to judging them purely on the technical aspects?
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Rahini David
August 23, 2022
KS: For what it is worth, I personally feel it applies to a lot more than just music. For me it applies to comedy. I don’t mind it at all when a Goundamani comedy scene is crass. But I mind it terribly if a Santhanam comedy track is even in my “recommended list”.
In music, I don’t mind double entendre in 90’s lyrics. I mind it in any current song and would cheerfully push to the “never again” list. I positively like items songs like “Palinginal oru maligai” in old movies. But I don’t even bother seeing until the end for a more recent song.
I think people who have already decided that they are going to be on top of new releases in Ghazals, or Carnatic or Gospel or Country music do welcome new music and singers even until their seventies. That is because they have a more active connection with the music by going to concerts, being patrons for new musicians(often their own relatives but hey!) etc.
They are very different from people who just go to Youtube Music and play a familiar playlist.
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Rahini David
August 23, 2022
Madan: I have always been considered one of those who can’t go beyond Raja-Rahman playlists. It boils down to how much music one listens to in an average day. When SPB died and the Tribute thread here was overflowing with suggestions of rare gems I realized that I had stopped listening to music almost completely for 7 months (from March 2020 to Sept 2020) from when the lockdown started and I started to work from home. If I wasn’t commuting then I was away from music too. Naturally I listened to solely SPB-Illayaraja songs for one whole month with ARR sprinkled once in a while. And after that I will more naturally gravitate towards a Gemini Ganesan playlist than something recent.
I do believe that there are good music and great musicians being introduced everyday. But I can’t be bothered. I can’t sample every Netflix Show and every Amazon Prime movie. It is the same with music and it is the same with books. When I first held my Kindle 3 years ago, I had decision paralysis for an entire month. I could not go beyond 3 paragraphs of any book whether good or bad. I had to actively teach myself how to read a full book properly without getting fidgety. We live in a very different world now. We should be ok with not sampling everything available for sampling. Or we are just going to go insane.
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Anand Raghavan
August 23, 2022
Agree BR, the music that appeals to us between ages 12-21 is what we keep going to even in adulthood and about in flow, it gain seems to be a factor of the above point, seeing my nephews and nieces are able to refer to a lot of new songs in our family get togethers or online meets…
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nimmiR
August 23, 2022
@Rahini. I love “Palinginal oru maligai” Vijaya Lalitha and L R Easwari! You get the lyrics right!!!
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Madan
August 23, 2022
Rahini : Oh, I absolutely agree with feeling OK with not sampling everything. I can’t listen to as much music as I did in my twenties either, it’s just physically impossible now. And I stopped binge listening many years back, I prefer instead to take one album that I have started to like and stay with it for a week or two at least and play it on loop.
My pushback is more against the tendency to make this some sort of truism that it’s the music of your childhood and teens, max young adult years that you are most attached to (I am also generally anti the idea of passing off surveys as ‘science’). This doesn’t have to be true and it’s a choice we make, not that our brains are wired that way. Even people who aren’t big-time cinephiles don’t stop watching new movies past their twenties. So the only reason it isn’t that way in music is the stories we tell ourselves about our habits. It’s not the music that loses its wonderment but we who stop approaching it with that sense of wonderment that came naturally to us in our formative years. So this is changeable but requires an investment of time and effort.
I will admit that for me, the impulse to keep looking for music I haven’t heard comes from the fact that I get bored of listening to the same composers for say months on end. And also that I have never been able to associate songs with very vivid memories of life events because the song becomes like a flesh and blood person I know after some time and gets into my bloodstream (so that it feels like I was born with even though I may have heard it for the first time only five years back for eg).
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KS
August 23, 2022
@Rahini David:
Thats true, but thats not the issue here. As we grow, we notice things that we would have overlooked or forgiven back then, but stick out crassly by todays standards of acceptability. I do enjoy Santhanam comedy though, at least the early 2010s pre-hero version, but thanks to wide exposure and keeping up with moral trends, we justifiably tend not to be as forgiving of jokes that involve bodyshaming, sexism, racism, etc. For example, many of our favorite cartoons from the 40s-70s are incredibly racist, and that wouldn’t fly today. Even the boy-chase-girl themes in older movies, which were celebrated as romance or true-lowve, would be considered disgusting creepy behaviour now.
What I was referring to is the impact that art forms like music seem to have when you’re young, sliding right into your head and piggybacking on your own experiences and memories, with that intimacy making you overvalue them as art. And as you get older and start dying inside, there is just not enough space left to entertain newer freeloaders. And your point about people sticking to one genre like Carnatic and jazz and carrying that passion into their seventies is another demonstration of that more-of-the-same mindset, where they keep feeding into the same attachment they developed young.
So I’m just curious how much this affects the judgment of a critic and the parameters they use to evaluate music (or even cinema).
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shaviswa
August 23, 2022
@Madan
I have had the reverse transition. I think I have mentioned this before on this blog somewhere. I grew up during the Rahman times but I was introduced to Ilaiyaraja when I went to hostel. After that I have actually been able to go back to the 60s when MSV-TKR were at their peak. I have also relished many AM Rajah melodies as well as KVM’s brilliant compositions.
If I move forward in time, I have enjoyed Yuvan, Harris Jeyaraj and even DSP whose foot tapping songs are a good listen. Some Imman albums have also been impressive.
But off the current lot, I am not able to get past a few seconds when I play their songs 🤦
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Madan
August 23, 2022
shaviswa : I don’t listen to much current film music either. Not that I can’t stand it but that I find it boring mostly. That’s why I moved to Western music many years back and that’s unlikely to change barring some amazing reversal of trends.
Also, I hardly listen to any 40s Hindi music and not much of 50s Tamil music either. Starting point is 50s Hindi and 60s Tamil. A lot of this is also about how songs were used in which period and which listeners connect in what way to the different period. The trend of either sugar candy HJ songs or kuthu in 00s got boring for me so I started to tune out of it. That is, my interest in film music begins and ends with the phase in which it was about melodies and arrangements rather than targeting a specific ‘sound’. And that’s why the new songs that do speak to me – mostly Hindi – are always the ones which have something going on in the melody and/or arrangement. Ik Kudi, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Mar Jaayein, Taare Ginn, Rait, now Phir Na Aisi Raat.
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brangan
August 23, 2022
I was not saying I listen to all music only because of my job. It is also that movies / music are my two biggest passions. So I am genuinely interested and my brain – I guess – accommodates new forms easily. I recommend DRIVE MY CAR very highly, but a lot of my friends were not able to cross 30 minutes. It’s the same with music.
But I know now that I am not as much of a book lover as I thought I was. I cannot bring myself to enjoy newer styles of prose and find it difficult to get through 20 pages if a book does not grab me.
So I guess (at least in my case) it’s a question of how deeply you care about something. I literally could not move when I first heard that “Mana medai” song I wrote about a while ago. I must have listened to it some 50 times that day.
Agreed, there are fewer new songs that stop me in my tracks like that, but I do enjoy quite a lot of it. Like anything with Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics, I make it a point to listen to. I was stunned by a few songs of ATRANGI RE – gave them the same “50 odd times” treatment. Loved the LAILA MAJNU songs. And so forth.
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Madan
August 23, 2022
“My brain accommodates new forms easily” – Brilliantly put, this is the essence of what I was trying to say. If you allow the music to just wash over you without judgement, you can train your brain to welcome different things instead of regarding them with suspicion. Of course this is not infinitely possible and the Richard Dawkins saying that don’t open your mind so much that your brain pops out applies. But when you recognize that an Ik Kudi as modern as it is has the common thread of great melody, arrangements and soulful singing that you liked in your favourite films music, you can learn to enjoy it for what it is and not focus on the ways in which it is not like the older songs.
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shaviswa
August 23, 2022
@Madan
Thanks for the Ik Kudi reco. Loved the song. I have listened to it on repeat mode a few times now.
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Madan
August 23, 2022
shaviswa : Anytime! Hit me up for recs. Hindi in particular produces these soulful beauties once in a while.
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Jayram
August 23, 2022
This “softie” touches my heart and I don’t know Malayalam: https://youtu.be/cbacTxPORT8
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Madan
August 23, 2022
Nice minimalist arrangement!
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Rahul
August 23, 2022
I happened to watch 19 (1)(A). Nithya Menen is absolutely fantastic in it (and so is VJS, but it is expected of him). I think I had the wrong idea about her acting abilities based on a few Telugu rom-coms that I saw.
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Jayram
August 23, 2022
Hey Rahul, I also watched 19 (1)(A). While I found it slow moving and there were some points that didn’t gel well, Nithya Menen is magnificent and her eyes simply say everything. I think I would like to watch it once more.
SPOILER ALERT
Do you think she died at the end in the hands of the mob after she sent VJS’s manuscript to the investigating cop, Indrajith and VJS’s sister?
SPOILER ENDS
Have you watched Nithya in Awe and Skylab? I loved her performances in both Telugu movies. I have yet to watch her in her short with Revathi in Modern Love Hyderabad.
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Aman Basha
August 23, 2022
@Madan: I thought Tere Hawale was really good, mostly because I didn’t expect the ghazal like structure it had. Although Phir Na Aisi was good, neither its lyrics nor the tune surprised me as Tere Hawale’s did.
And how can you being a Raja fan not mention this song:
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Madan
August 23, 2022
I liked Tere Hawale too for exactly that reason – that it gets into a ghazal space. But I preferred the combination of stillness and longing in Phir Na Aisi Raat. It’s intense and yet simmering rather than exploding and that’s a tone I love as such in music.
And wow, I hadn’t heard that Zero song. Now…I do have a minor quibble with Ajay-Atul that they mimic the grandiose, symphonic Raja of post Dhalapathi days (esp Malayalam film Guru, Hey Ram, Lajja, etc) and I always preferred the funky Raja of the 80s. That version had more ‘bite’ and the music also got less in the way.
That said, just as I was about to give up on the song, the change in melody midway got me back in. I will spin it a few more times now. Any other interesting songs in that album?
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Rahul
August 23, 2022
Thank you Jayram, much appreciated. I think I started watching Awe but didn’t finish it. Will give it a shot again, and also your other suggestions.
As for the spoiler question, I am going to have to watch it again
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Aman Basha
August 23, 2022
@Madan: The remaining songs in Zero are reworked numbers, but JHMS has some good numbers like Hawaayein and my favorite, Safar.
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shaviswa
August 24, 2022
@Aman
Which song is that from zero? The video on your post is unavailable (at least to me)
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Madan
August 24, 2022
shaviswa: You have to click on the link and play it in YouTube. The song is Mere Naam Tu. It’s somewhat like an urbane cousin of Sairat Zaala Ji but more interesting.
Aman Basha : I have heard Hawayein on radio, didn’t recognize it by name. Safar has a nice shuffle beat with fretless bass (wow!) but the vocals are mixed too loud and Arijit’s attempt at lazy disdain comes off a bit like Chris Martin to me. The Coldplay singer, not the world famous no.11.
The thing I loved so much about Phir Na Aisi Raat is the production is so rich and sympathetic to the dynamics of the music (for a mainstream comparison, think of how the Skyfall title track is recorded) and the arrangements are so finely curated. Nothing is mixed too loud, the drums sound the way real drums recorded well do and most importantly, Pritam is not trying to do too much with the arrangement. It takes guts to just get out of the way of the music and go with the flow instead of trying to second guess if this is good enough to grab the audience. And it also doesn’t lean on a Broadway/West End sound (the way Taare Ginn does). It’s somewhat like a Stevie Wonder ballad with Indian melody and Hindi lyrics. I wasn’t expecting that from Pritam at all. I am blown away. I hope this song gets more eyeballs and praise because composers need that encouragement too for serving the music and not being content to stick to popular trends.
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vijay
August 24, 2022
“I was stunned by a few songs of ATRANGI RE – gave them the same “50 odd times” treatment”
that’s still composed by the old fella..you are getting old man 🙂 Nothing from Vikram or Beast?
when a MD worth his salt is at the peak of his creative powers, what he does with those fun fast songs, the so-called foot-tappers is what that often that separates him from the rest of the bunch, not just the soft melodies(which any half-decent composer given enough space can impress with once in a while, Deva has his share as well)..on that count the current bunch in TFM is a huge disappointment. With Rahman, Gentleman/Thiruda thiruda which had such songs(Chandralekha, chikku bukku railu) is what firmly turned the musical tide in his favour not pleasant pop melodies like ‘netru illadha maatram’ or ‘kannukku mai azhagu’ and such..(when i hear them now I feel a Harris Jayaraj could have done these). And with IR you had songs like these bust the trend every 2 years during his peak years which includes the original Vikram title song..
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Vignesh
August 29, 2022
A sweet beautiful film with a wonderful Dhanush and Nithya Menon. An excellent Bharatiraja and Prakaah raj too.
Dhanush, i believe, is easily the best tamil actor of this generation (surely one of the best young actors in the whole nation as well). The 2nd best may be Vijay Sethupati.
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Macaulay Perapulla
August 29, 2022
I found Bharathiraja’s character so endearing. I teared up when he says “There is a joy in being baaram to your sons” As a young parent, whose parents moved with me recently, that line evoked a million emotions inside me.
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amp
August 29, 2022
Compared to Dhanush’s other movie trailers, this one had personality. Usually his other trailers are so generic and shows the regular fights, songs and punch dialogues. This one looks like it has a semblance of a story and has a purpose other than showing him as the super big star thing. That alone makes me want to watch this movie.
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madhusudhan194
August 30, 2022
I found the first half of this film so dense, deep and fascinating that i found the second half to be quite disappointing. There’s so much happening in the first half – Dhanush’s conflicts with his father, his drowning self pity, a tragedy that’s broken the family, a grandfather who’s the only source of joy in that household, a friend who’s the only other support system he has apart from his grandfather. It’s the stuff of the greatest Selvaraghavan films put together in a way i thought only he could. All the actors are super terrific in these portions. VIP had a similar first half but the Dhanush character there was inherently massy – he is determined to use his education in his profession, gives it back to the bullies and as the lyrics go, he’s a “veriyaana virumaandi”. Here he’s a weak man who can neither stand up for himself nor the people he loves. The last time he played a similar character was in Mayakkam enna (unsurprisingly a Selvaraghavan film). The variation he brings to these characters in more or less the same situations shows he’s one of the rare actors capable of pulling this stuff off. And another signature Selvaraghavan element is the way the English speaking rich people are shown – the one sided judgement of their ways of life and dissing their privilege.
But the second half slides into a generic romance and the age old cliche of the best friend being the secret lover. The idea itself is not as disappointing as the fact that the film forgets several other problems of its protagonist and kind of concludes that the Nithya Menen character is the solution to all his problems. I had a hard time believing they could have a happy married life as we dont see that the Dhanush character has grown row out of his self-pity and low self-esteem. She might still end up carry the weight of his problems. Hence I didn’t find the ending as “feel-good” as many seem to have. But it was still quite watchable as the writing remains consistently good and the performances continue to excel.
I am loving this 2.0 version of Prakash Raj since Paava Kathaigal. He was a great actor before too but there’s a visible world weariness in his looks now that simply seems to elevate even mundane scenes involving him. He’s done father roles before but here he’s the proud, egoistic police officer but also a broken man brimming with the guilt of being responsible for his wife’s death and a strained relationship with his son. It’s such a raw performance and it felt like watching a talented new actor break out. I wish the second half had been about Dhanush learning self love and trying to correct his mistakes with his best friend and family supporting him rather than how he ends up together with his best friend.
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Jayram
September 4, 2022
I watched the film recently and enjoyed it. Mithun Jawahar keeps the low-key, yet charming mood going and the chemistry between the 4 leads is crackling.
It’s a cakewalk for Dhanush as Jr Pazham. Bharathiraja is excellent and endearing as Sr Pazham and Prakash Raj brings another dimension to his acting prowess as the egotistical police inspector/guilt-ridden father, Neelakandan. But stealing the show from all the 3 male leads is an effervescent Nithya Menen who just lights up the screen as Shobana. After Parvathy in Maryan and Manju Warrier in Asuran, Nithya is another strong actress who dominated in a Dhanush movie. Hats off to her.
Also, a small shoutout to Munishkanth, the actors who played the maternal grandparents and Revathi in her cameo as the late wife/mom.
@Macaulay Perapulla: you could say that both Prakash Raj and Dhanush were burdens to Bharathiraja himself as he had to clean up their mess despite his elderly age. That said, his line was poignant.
@Yajiv/anonymousviolin20: agreed.
@BR/Raj/Satya/madhusudhan19: Yeah, it was predictable that Jr Pazham and Shobana were to end up together and the younger brother’s outburst didn’t fit in which kind of betrayed her character as someone pining for him since 6th grade. Maybe they could have gotten rid of that part. But like Satya said, the film was so engaging that I wasn’t bothered by it.
Also@madhusudhan19: lovely analysis. Were you reminded of OKK towards the end? Secondly, Tara-Adi or Shobana-Jr Pazham?
Now my question to all of you is: Do you think the film would have worked if they didn’t get married and remained best friends forever? If yes, how?
I think I’m going to watch it again.
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Jayram
September 4, 2022
*Mithran not Mithun.
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Gaki
September 4, 2022
Hi BR, Any plans to do a long interview with Bharathiraja, the actor? It would be wonderful to hear how his directing influenced his own acting.
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Voldemort
September 4, 2022
Finally caught this film. Beautiful film and great review, BR. Also, terrific comment @madhusudan. You exactly echoed my thoughts. The VIP character is someone who is just an unlucky engineer, but here the self esteem issues, family issues et al add so many layers to the Pazham character. Also what a fabulous cast – not one person seemed out of place. The Rashi Khanna portions were cliche and probably could have been better. And the ending was such a dampener with the brother going look what all she has secretly got for you boo hoo. Like others have mentioned here, I felt that was pretty shoddy too, but by that time you’ve already grown to love the film that this is but a minor nitpick.
When Macaulay commented about the “baaram” line here, I didnt think too much about it, on reading it. But watching it play out, I had a huge lump in the throat. Pazham senior is such a great, thoroughly endearing, warm, lovely character played by the great Bharatiraja that you could make a whole enjoyable movie around him. Completely agree with the vulnerable turn of Prakash Raj too. The family drama was so engaging that it made you forgive the awkward climax. The perfect ending IMO would have been to cut out the whole Canada thing – have Shobana tell him (instead of the whole brother thing – come on, she has so many Valentine cards, really? The letter and other stuff like the old tickets makes some sense but the cards belonged to a totally different film) how she feels disrespected that he tells her he loves her, now that everyone he liked turned him down, and then him slowly realise and they get together. But then, that wouldnt be a big climactic showdown.
It’s however heartening to see such an intimate, vulnerable, low-key story. No one feels bad about crying. Even the fight was so good, it felt like things were at stake, the heft of Prakash Raj being kicked in the face hits us like a ton of bricks, instead of ‘ look 12 guys will fly in the air now ‘ (not that that’s a completely bad thing). For every one hit Pazham gives, he gets hit and punched 10 times more.
All of the actors are good obviously but the standout for me was the awkward reaction Pazham Jr. gives when Anusha tips him. The light drains out of his face in a split second and it made me mist up a little.
Glad this is being received so well.
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Rahul
September 5, 2022
I watched Thiruchitrambalam yesterday. Nothing much to say except that I enjoyed the movie and it seems like Nithya Menen seems a lot more relaxed in front of the camera when she is given a character to play and not the archetypal romantic lead. She seemed to be having the most fun.
Too often, we criticize the heroines for their lack of acting abilities when their characters are mostly poorly written and all they have to do is show up and look pretty.
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Cholan Raje
September 5, 2022
I do not believe Dhanush has any love for Nithya Menen at the end. Very awkward ending.
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Karthik
September 5, 2022
I had a good time watching this movie, but I cant say I was wowed by it. All four main characters were solid, and elevated a somewhat generic script. Nithya Menen brought a lot to her role, much more than what was given to her. For most of the movie, her inner world was conspicuously absent, almost every moment was defined by what her character felt about Thiru or Thiru’s life, and her lines were generic. And yet she was so watchable, and her silent moments were gold (like the one after Thiru’s first “breakup”).
I thought that the PTSD angle was well done and even the fight at the end was choreographed in sync with Dhanush’s character. Actually, the actors really sold every scene (except the ones with Raashi Khanna and Priya Bhavani Shankar). But still, there was a “genericness” to the writing that made it feel less than what it could have been.
One thing I couldn’t shake off was the VIP hangover (that long monologue was fun in VIP, overdone in Thanga Magan, but completely off-key here). In general, I liked that Mithran Jawahar didnt let scenes linger, and visually this is definitely a better film. Both Nithya Menen and Bharathiraja made this feel richer in character. But I think I still like the first half of VIP better than this film, maybe because the emotional beats there were lighter.
And the film’s sound didnt work for me at all. The background music in the film felt unoriginal and even discordant with the tone that the film was going for. When watching the Megam karukkadha song, I thought the whimsical charm of the song would set the tone and define the “soundscape” of the film. But along with Thai Kelavi, these songs just stuck out as singles.
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Prat
September 10, 2022
The movie was shockingly sensible and surprisingly good. There was no nonsense, no unnecessary melodrama. The story was clean and it was delivered well. I didn’t expect to like it this much (I hated VIP) and it signals there’s still a lot of hope for the direction in which Tamil mainstream cinema is evolving.
The thing I loved the most about it is how REAL the sets looked. Every single detail was authentic and it’s been so long since we saw anything on screen that was remotely close to normal people’s houses. These houses looked like the one most of us grew up in, and not some fancy bungalow in boat club or an expensive high rise in OMR with all the trendy furniture. The sensibility was also 100% urban middle-middle class and it’s so refreshing because our movies mostly reflect an aspirational view of our surroundings than the actual ones. I hope this movie leads to many many more authentic stories being made on screen.
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Prat
September 10, 2022
This thread had some comments about lyricists earlier. I really enjoyed Uma Devi’s work in Natchathiram Nagargiradhu.
Found this article on Film Companion today(maybe BR should do an interview with her like the ones he did with Thamarai): https://www.filmcompanion.in/interviews/natchithram-nagargirathu-movie-songs-uma-devi-my-songs-speak-for-themselves-pa-ranjith/amp/
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