Cast

Gist: PrithviRaj and PrakashRaj are musicians. PrithviRaj falls in love with Jothika. Even after he finds out that Jothika cannot hear or talk, he is determined to make her his better half. For this PrithviRaj and PrakashRaj appeal to Swarnamalya, Jothika’s close friend. Due to her bitter experiences in life, Jothika has an inherent aversion towards men. How PrithviRaj wins Jothika’s heart is the rest of the story.

My 2 cents: This is a perfect example of a director’s movie. If we had retained the rest of the combination and changed just the director, we would have a much different movie in our hands. Director RadhaMohan has done such commendable work. The way he has explained how it is possible for a hearing impaired person to enjoy music, is just great.

It is a movie that says music is so universal that even a person who has never heard sound before in her life can enjoy music. It is movie that says that even silence is musical if heard with the right ears at the right time by the right person. A music director has plenty of scope in a movie like this and Vidhyasagar has capitalized on it big time. ‘Kannal Pesum Penne’ by SPB and ‘Pesa Madandhaye’ are my favorites. Time and again SPB proves that he still has the brilliance. He is one of those people who still continue to amaze me.

Prakash Raj deserves a special mention not only as an actor but also as a producer. He has such good taste. I kind of think of him as the person who can follow KamalHassan’s foot steps. Partly because he has the same kind of genius as Kamal and partly because I cannot make heads or tails when he gets in to the genius mode (Any one read poetry by Kamal or PrakashRaj?? I surely need Cliff notes!). Initially he looked slightly old for the role, but he keeps the role alive with humor, sense of timing and you start enjoying his performance.

In one of her interviews Jothika had mentioned that she wanted to do this movie because after she had retired from acting, she wanted to look back and feel good that she had a movie like Mozhi in her filmography. She already has such expressive eyes, she has taken maximum advantage of it.

PrithviRaj is handsome, sincere, has a natural flair for comedy and can act. What more can one expect?

The movie review is not complete without a mention about the dialogue writer. When PrithviRaj explains to PrakashRaj about meeting his dream girl, he tells him, “It felt like I was looking at my mother” and immediately PrakashRaj responds, “Che, vayasanavala?”(Meaning:“Is it a old woman?”). I was laughing out loud. It may not sound like much now, but its one of the jokes where you have to be there. There are so many jokes like this through out the movie.

Other: To hear songs from this tamil movie click here.
For movie trailers click here.
For picture gallery click here.

Verdict: Kind of like Seinfeld, it is pretty much a movie about nothing but still something in it makes us want to watch it! All credit goes to the director!

Cast

Gist: The movie starts with Surya and Jothika getting married. The whole village is rejoicing, but the bride and the groom are as indifferent as they can be. Jothika had always wanted to find a soulmate, fall in love and then get married. So she thinks that an arranged marriage is the end of all her romantic dreams. Surya’s reason for lack of any interest is not explained right away.

Fast forwarding 6 years, Surya and Jothika are leading a very happy married life in Bombay. They have a little girl, head over heels in love and can’t keep their hands away from each other. After reading one of Surya’s old diaries, Jothika finds Surya was in love with Bhomika, his junior in college and had gotten married to her. Bhoomika’s father had intervened and separated them with brutal force. Surya is heart broken and his words are, “I want to live with Aishwarya(Bhoomika) for atleast one day.”

Jothika is shattered to learn about the other woman in her husband’s past. But she is also extremely moved by the longing in her husband’s words. Being the doting wife who intends to fulfill all her husband’s wishes, she meets Bhoomika and agrees to share his husband with her for one day.

My 2 cents: I really wanted to like this movie. I have been waiting to check this movie out as soon as the DVDs were released. Surya is my all time favourite, I had fallen for him after I watched Nandha and Jothika entered my favs list after Khakha Khakha. When my friends told me that the movie was so-so, I was in serious denial. But I hate to admit that they are right. This movie was neither here nor there, I had to create a new category – “2.5 stars”!

Rather than focusing on the story and screen play, director has relied on riding the wave created by the real life romance between Surya and Jothika. There are lots of unanswered questions. I would have been more interested in finding out how Surya and Jothika hit it off. That would have been a nice “Mouna Raagam”, “Dum Dum Dum” kind of movie ain’t it?

After 6 years Bhoomika is no longer a timid girl. She seems to have become pretty independent, sports a devil-may-care attitude and lives in Australia. Then why didn’t Bhoomika make any effort to get in touch with Surya? Director seems to have taken effort to explain a lot of trivial stuff but he has no explanation why Bhoomika had given up looking for Surya.

Jothika introduces herself of Surya’s wife, when she meets Bhoomika for the first time. Bhoomika gives her a strange look and asks her, “Appo naan yaaru?” I loved her attitude in that scene. I really thought that she is going to do something big, but she falls into the typical stereotype.

Had I been in Surya’s shoes, I wouldn’t be standing there crying all the time. I would have been pretty mad at Jothika for coming up with such a stupid one-night-stand kind of arrangement.

Half way in to the movie, I started to get the feeling that the movie had been playing for a very long time!

Surya has great chemistry with both Jothika and Bhoomika. Both the women are very good looking. Lollu Sabha Santhanam who plays Surya’s friend has some great one-liners.

Music by A.R.Rahman. Typical ARR style music. I loved the folk song(Kummi adi), Newyork nagaram and Majja Majja. The other songs have to grow on me.

Other: For songs, trailer and production pictures, click here.

Some Trivia: Aasin was the first choice for Bhoomika’s role. But she turned it down because she felt that the role didn’t have much importance.

The movie’s release date was postponed to be as close to Surya-Jothika’s wedding, hoping that the wedding might boost box office performance.

From my friend – New York nagaram song is actually filmed in Switzerland!

Movie was renamed as Sillendru Oru Kadhal to qualify for tax benefits. (According to the new rule, in Tamil Nadu, movies with pure tamil names get tax break)

A ladies organization filed a stay order against the movie. Reason stated – depicting that the wife trying to fix the husband with another woman is against tamil culture. Could be another publicity stunt to boost movie performance(purely my guess)!

Verdict: Could’ve, should’ve put in more effort.

Gist: For Simbu its love at first sight when he sees his friend’s sister Jothika in a video recording. He visits his friend’s village hoping to get in to Jothika’s good books. One thing leads to another and Jothika’s whole family is brutally killed by the villain. Simbu somehow manages to bring Jothika to Chennai, hoping to send her back to London safely. Does Simbu succeed in telling Jothika his love? Does she feel the same about him? That is the rest.

My 2 cents: I have always liked K.S.Ravikumar’s method of story telling, just in case you are wondering why the movie received four stars from me. Simbu and Jothika??? There is no chemistry between them. It is now becoming a rarity to see Vivek in movies. In Saravana, he does a fairly good job. Prakash Raj’s performance is impressive. He is one of the few actors who can mould themselves to fit in to the role. He has great screen presence.

Music by Srikanth Deva is just plain ruckus. Whoever came with this new trend to remix old songs, deserves a kick on the head. People of with talent of their own, like Deva and Srikanth Deva, conveniently use it as an excuse for their plagiarism.

Simbu talks too much. He talks non-stop without even pausing for a breath. It is very irritating. Thank God he does not make silly finger puppets or deliver lame punch dialogues. In tamil they have a term called ‘adhigaprasingi’, that’s exactly what Simbu is. He some how fails to fit in to a hero image.

For all the blatant killing and fighting on the streets that goes on, one wonders what the police is doing!

Other: To hear songs from this tamil movie click here.
For movie gallery click here.
For movie trailer click here.

Verdict:Saravana is a good time pass movie. But for Simbu the movie would have been even better.