POOPPARIKKA VARUGIROM

A movie review by Balaji Balasubramaniam

Cast:	'Sivaji' Ganesan, Ajay, Malavika, Raghuvaran, M.N.Nambiar, 'Malaysia' Vasudevan, Chinni Jayanth, Ambika
Music:	Vidyasagar
Direction:	Venkatesh A

What a powerful effect Kaadhalukku Mariyaadhai has had on tamil cinema?! The blockbuster single-handedly altered the nature of cini-romance from a point where it was all-conquering to a point where affection towards one's family takes precedence over love. The aftershocks of that movie have still not subsided as seen by the the recent spate of movies like Poovellaam Kaettuppaar, Minsaara Kannaa and Jodi with the same theme. Close on their heels comes another one. But thankfully, the treatment here is a little different as the lovers themselves don't do much and their actions take a backseat to the machinations of an older man to get them together.

The older man(Sivaji), a writer specialising in love stories, is hero Aravind's(Ajay) grandfather. His brother(M.N.Nambiar) lives in Bombay with his daughter(Ambika) and son-in-law Ranganathan(Raghuvaran). They have 3 daughters. Sivaji's action during the marriage of the eldest daughter earns him the enmity of everyone in her family. However romance blooms between Aravind and the second daughter Priya(Malavika). Ranganathan is devastated by the behaviour of his eldest daughter and seeing his condition, Priya decides to sacrifice her love. Sivaji is not willing to accept this and goes about trying to get them together.

The movie starts off promisingly with well-maintained suspense about Sivaji's involvement in the oldest girl's marriage. But the way he goes about implementing his plan is unreasonable. He goes about doing in public something that should've been taken care of in a private forum. While the director was probably shooting for generating sympathy for Sivaji, this scene had the opposite effect on me and I fully understood Raghuvaran's anger. There is also a pivotal secret revealed towards the end of the movie which supposedly justifies Sivaji's actions but it just served to stress why the whole matter should've been taken care of in private. But the relationship between the grandfather and grandson is well brought out.

There are two main elements in the story. The romance between the lead pair and the tactics employed by the grandfather to make it succeed. Both these have their faults. The romance is too fleeting to make any kind of an impact. All it takes for the heroine to fall in love with the hero is one scene where he describes when, according to him, a girl is beautiful. We never get a chance to connect with them or appreciate their romance.

Once the romance is settled, the focus shifts to the grandfather but unfortunately, his actions are neither clever nor interesting. Sivaji has the same job that he did in Mannavaru Chinnavaru. There he plotted to rejoin Arjun and Soundarya while here he plots to unite Ajay and Malavika. The responses of Nambiar to a couple of Sivaji's actions evoke some chuckles but thats as far as it goes. There is lots of comic potential in many of the scenes but these have not been fully exploited. It is possible to make things interesting with oldies in the cast, as was shown in Rojavanam, but thats not the case here.

One factor that rescues the tedium is the comedy. Chinni Jayanth has sole responsibility for the comedy and he makes full use of it. With his unique dialog delivery full of "gilpas", laughs are guaranteed whenever he is in the scene. His frequent facial contortions when confused by Sivaji's actions are undeniably comical and both his actions and the dialogs peak in the "Avvai Shanmugi" scene.

Sivaji hogs most of the frames leaving little for Ajay and Malavika to do. But he does give a restrained performance without overacting too much. Newcomer Ajay has the right height and build for a hero but not the right looks. His diction also leaves a lot to be desired with his inability to pronounce the "zha" sound. So though he dances and fights well, I don't think Vijay, Ajith or Prashanth have anything to be worried about. Malavika hasn't shown much improvement over her wooden performance in Aanandha Poongaatre. Raghuvaran lends a dignity, which I'm not sure is fully deserved, to the movie. Vidyasagar shows his talent in the Ettil Azhagu... but the song sequences are generally not very imaginatively or innovatively picturised.