Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya

Tragedy. You know it's tragic when someone like Gautham Menon runs out of ideas and chooses to go by the formula. Boy meets girl, love at first sight, even the religious reason is used to object the love, threatening father, elder brother who gives the hero a chance to fight, and saying that he knows boxing is a lame way of justifying the gravity defying falls that the villain's minions take thanks to a single punch.

Split the movie into two halves. The first half is purely amateurish. The dialogues are natural. The use of Tamil and English in the same sentence is, for the lack of a better word, realistic. Deny it how you may, but that is how many of us speak and think. But the 'love at first sight' thing is now boring. The Director has taken the pain to pen dialogues that are in daily parlance. But those lines haven't been put out well by Simbu. It is painful to see him attempt acting.

The first half, frankly, looks like it has been directed by the guy who makes documentaries in college festivals. Yes, it has a style, yes it has substance, but it looks completely different to the second half. It looks like Gautham gave the mantle to someone and sat in the corner sipping coffee. And seeing that the amateur screwed up his job, Gautham seems to have taken the bull by the horn and made a second half to the movie which looks more like course correction than path setting.

The last 20 odd minutes of the movie made me wonder where the person who weaved this wonderful poetry disappeared for the rest of the film. The creative genius of Gautham is proven in those minutes. That was powerful and effective. But if he's chosen to give that kind of a monumental ending, why in all that's holy did he make us go through everything before that.

As for the expectations that at least Gautham would do justice to ARR's songs and give a proper visual, I was disappointed. Aaromale was well done. Anbil Avan had an expected video. But the other songs, especially Kannukkul Kannai was a pain to watch. It was a beautiful song of pain and agony filled with images of tall monkeys in white hats.

VTV did have some good points. It was a change to watch Simbu being docile and attempting to 'act'. Trisha's acting and characterization shows Gautham's will to give the heroine a strong role. The cameraman acting as a comedian with simple funny lines was a relief. The background score was well used. The scenes were carefully set in places in Chennai which are rarely seen.

If only Gautham had taken the pain to direct the whole movie and not just taken over from the ass who directed the first half, this would've gone down as a classic in Tamil Cinema.