A Thousand Stupid Sins

While talking on Ghajini, how can its original hero, Suriya Shivakumar be left far behind? After almost an year, Suriya has come back to the silver screen with Gautam Vasudev Menon’s “Vaaranam Aayiram” and half way through the movie, you realize Suriya was better off staying away from the screen, leading a happy life with wife Jothika and his cute kid daughter!

My problem with Vaaranam Aayiram is that it purports to show unrealistic things in a realistic set up. A question that haunts me till date on this movie and something for which I am yet to get an answer is- How old was Suriya in the movie when his father passes away, assuming that his father passes away in 2008. My calculation is that he should have been on the wrong side of 30’s since as a teenager, he is shown dancing in front of a theatre playing Kamal Hassan’s “Sathya” which was released more than 20 years ago. If that was the case, why should he be singing “En Iniya Ponnilavae” when asked to sing a romantic song? I am not complaining about the evergreen Ilaiyaraaja melody when compared to the original songs in the movie. Not that they are not good, they are too many and too lengthy.

This supposed take on a son’s relationship with his father has hardly any well written scenes or moments between the father and the son. You do not feel for Suriya when he receives a message while on a war plane that he has lost his father and when he is trying to recollect fond memories of his father. And while a son is remembering his father, is it necessary to show the romance between the father and the mother, something that had taken place even before the son was born? That song “Mundinam Paathenae” is melodious, but both Suriya and Simran have been made to look their worst.

The most stupid scene in this morbid drama takes place at the US embassy when Suriya declares to the authorities that he wants to go to the US to bring back his girl and the authorities immediately stamp the visa. How I wish getting to the US was as easy! This whole Oklahoma thing happened not so long ago and hence, Sameera Reddy’s character and costumes look totally out of place considering the fact that chronologically, the sequence of events should have taken place in mid- 90’s. There are no answers to questions like how did Suriya make enough money to travel to US, what did he do in the US for 90 days, blah blah blah.

I did not quite understand the emotions that Suriya shares with the gentleman in Delhi whose kid was kidnapped when he is not able to understand what his own parents are going through when they realize that he is addicted to drugs. Also which parents would send their drug addict son on a round trip of the country when he should ideally be put in an asylum? It is also quite ironical that Suriya looks most handsome while depicting the drug addict. The character also has a sister who is very comfortably relegated to the background.

Divya Spandana looks good but plays a very badly written character that has no graph and emerges suddenly out of nowhere. Divya’s trip to the Airforce academy to meet Suriya is another example of a totally unlikely sequence in the movie. Their song together has been sung remarkably well by Sudha Raghunathan (though I cannot remember the lines).

One feels sorry for Suriya who has spent his precious time and energy on a movie like this. Gautam and Suriya, unfortunately for both of you, your “Forrest Gump” this is not! The only other performance that stays with you is of Simran who firmly takes the bold step ahead to play older sister, auntie, mummy kind of roles in future, a far cry from those GLAMOUROUS outings of the past, the ones which her ardent fans (like yours faithfully) would cherish for a long time to come…

Gautam deserves a pat on his shoulder for introducing those evergreen romantic melodies of Ilaiyaraaja to an entirely new generation and for telling them in no uncertain terms that all you require to woo a girl is to sing one of those songs…but that is hardly any solace for the director- actor duo of Gautam and Suriya and also for the unsuspecting audience who is still looking forward to Gautam to give us one more of those precious things of the past (read minnale, kakka kakka, vettaiyaadu vilaiyaadu).

I am keeping my fingers crossed…