A thousand elephants

So....
A title picked from Andal's 'Nachiyar Thirumozhi'. Is it gonna be erotic spirituality (as Thirumozhi's genre is) or does the literal translation of 'a thousand elephants' mean this is gonna be an action flick?
Harris's best work till date was an enigma by itself. An overwhelming 'rock' feel in couple of the numbers; A flat Sudha ragunathan crooning a disturbingly emotional melody; and a slow folk number that I was hoping will not make the final cut.
Gautham has a history of rip-offs. He has already made two films inspired by 'Seven' and one inspired by 'Derailed'. Lately, he has been talking to the media about how 'Forrest gump' inspired this one. So is this gonna be a straight rip off?
There was also the 'father & son' talk. Does Gautham Menon now becoming Gautham Vasudev Menon mean that this was going to be a 'Thavamai Thavamirunthu' redux?
And then there is also that critical factor of Sameera Reddy's shoulders and lips.
So, I had more reasons than one to look forward to Vaaranam Ayiram.



The only place I managed to get tickets was the drive in. And it was a cloudy evening.
But the weather held up mostly and the film did as well. The best part was, it surprised the hell out of me.
An honest, straight from the heart film. Now that by itself is surprising in Tamil these days. Add to it:
- an earth shattering performance by Simran.
- an intriguing background score
- a gimmick-less, narrative based editing
- minimalistic, but very effective make-up (u gotta have seen Dasavatharam atleast once to fully appreciate this)
- dialogues that actually strike a chord
- Imagination in most of the frames

you gotta winner.

Now, the other thing about this film is that Surya is in every single frame (no, am not kidding. Every frickin frame). In fact, most times, there are two Suryas in a frame. So, it takes some performance to pull this off, without pissing off the audience even once. He does it pretty well.

Its obvious that a lot of imagination and heart has gone into sketching the father character. It shows! Also, Gautham has always been amazing with relationships. There is a dignity and an intimacy that be brings to them, which makes you love the 'couple', more than you do the individual. You get into a bit of Deja vu many times.

And oh...the shoulders and lips dont disappoint you one bit. And that folk number is actually interesting.

Of course there is the length of the film, some scenes that tire you, the overtly episodic nature of the film, some monochromatic characters, Gautham's penchant with extending his films for 10 minutes after it is technically over, blah blah, which the critics will throw at you. Its all true.

But then at the end of the day, there is the heart thats been put into this. And thats in fantastic health ;)