The film stars Dhyan Sreenivasan, Pranav Mohanlal. The laughs keep coming, but the writing needed to be much stronger in the emotional portions.
At its most basic level, Varshangalkku Shesham is a story about two friends, what we’d call a bromance – one that starts in the 1970s and ends in the present day. Dhyan Sreenivasan plays Venu, who is a writer. Pranav Mohanlal plays Murali, who is a musician and also a drunkard. The way writer-director Vineeth Sreenivasan kickstarts the relationship between these two is lovely. It involves Venu being weak in history and being scared of his body-builder father. It involves paruppu vadai, and the newspaper it is wrapped in. It involves a drama troupe with a problem. The stream-of-consciousness way in which these events are stitched together makes it feel like one big stroke of the universe making something happen when you wish hard enough. And once Murali and Venu – note that both are Sanskrit names for the flute, or Lord Krishna – get together, there’s no stopping them. At least for a while.
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https://www.galatta.com/malayalam/movie/review/varshangalkku-shesham/
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Vimmuuu
April 15, 2024
A missed opportunity indeed! Totally agree on the emotional disconnect! The conflict between the successful and struggling friend didnt come out well; not nitpicking, but wouldnt Venu force Murali to stay with him instead of letting him continue in that leaky lodge, until his marriage atleast ? Wheres the friendship as they claim ! And, Venu’s outburst to Murali seemed totally out of character; could understand Venu behaving that way if Murali repeatedly went to his place all drunk and created a ruckus each time. It wouldve been better to see Murali disappear out of Venu’s life after the former having felt little about himself, and that he doesnt fit in Venu’s successful life anymore. A fight and such misunderstanding was unnecessary, and a reunion like they showcased in the movie wouldve made sense.
Also, scenes like playing violin at some random location in Munnar, and then, Annie recognising that, and spotting Murali at some place in Tamizh nadu towards the end, all these turned out to be extremely convenient writing. If Nithin Molly created such a buzz in Kerala with his drunken mistake, wouldnt Vineeths character already know about that and the movie, or was he living under some cave; why does he look so surprised and unaware.
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BR FAN
May 10, 2024
Spoilers ahead
One of the plot points in the movie is about music plagiarism but in this case it is not outright stealing of content usually shown in movies (like in say Udayanaanu Thaaram, Gramaphone) but more of another person getting credit due to whatever circumstances – and this plot point seems very similar to real life incident around freak penne song involving best friend of Vineeth Sreenivasan – Shaan Rahman.
Also, Vineeth Sreenivasan at the time of Hridayam had repeatedly clarified that he had no issues with Shaan Rahman and he was just giving an opportunity to help Hesham. But then he went ahead and introduced a new music director with Varshangalkku Shesham. The logic he has provided in interviews is that since the movie was set in the 70s and 80s he had initially planned to onboard a veteran music director but later when he met Amrith he was so impressed that he chose him.
I find all this suspect – I feel there was some rift between SR and VS and that lead to Hesham getting the opportunity. Of course the rift might not have been something big but VS probably used that as an opportunity to get away from SR. To prove that he was still friends with Shaan, VS says parts of Hridayam were shot in Shaan’s house. Now VS is a very shrewd guy – he hit two birds with one stone here – maintained his relationship with Shaan by keeping him in his circle (despite not collaborating with Shaan for music) and also saved cost for his producer by not having to hire a house or build a set.
Iirc it was post the Hridayam incident that the whole Shaan incident with freak penne song came out where it seems like in the movie or was initially agreed upon that AR would get the song credits but later the original guy got fed up (like PMohanlal in the movie) and revealed that he was the original MD of the song.
Maybe BS being a long time collaborator of SR was tired of him exploiting new talents and hence he went for HAV and AR as MDs for his last two projects. No one suspected VS’s intentions at the time of Hridayam as HAV hit it out of the park and it seemed VS gave an opportunity to a talented outsider. But with Varshangalkku Shesham things get murky. First of all, the whole plagiarism plot point being eerily similar to Freak penne saga. Second point is that SR was never the MD, VS wanted a senior guy (for the 70s vibe) but later he went for Amrith (as VS felt he could bring 70s vibe) – this time songs are mediocre and none of the songs sound like they are from 70s or 80s. The voices of the singers don’t match the time period especially the Nyapakam song – no male singer of that time sounded like that. It is only in the 2000s that singers with non yesudas less bass voice became the norm. Even Dhyan Sreenivasan is surprised that songs are mediocre. But VS says in an interview with Bombay Jayashree that Nyapakam is the purest song in his career – I feel VS used the 70s 80s song excuse to get rid of Shaan again and used a new guy instead of another established Music director so that SR won’t be incensed. He probably never meant to approach a senior music director as he claims in the interviews. But the new music director proved way too inexperienced and the output is mediocre. No way VS noticed this but he just went with it as he had bigger agenda at play. Since VS doesn’t want to make an enemy out of SR he made him play a role in the film so that he’ll never suspect that the plagiarism plot point is about him.
Now VS has said he’ll collaborate with SR for his next film. But with Hridayam and VS, Vineeth has achieved what he wanted to achieve – the freedom to collaborate with SR only once in a while as and when he wishes and suits him.
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