The heroine, Raiza, walked out of the theatre after seeing the public response during one of the shows and was seen bursting into tears.
Happy tears.
For be a newbie in this industry who has used her biggboss fame to the best potential and someone whose career could have been reduced to just smiling in Kalyan jewellers ad and dancing beside a well-known celebrity in Pothy’s ad, has seen her first breakthrough. This is massive for her. A massive one considering her debut entry on such a huge scale backed up with Yuvan’s music and production. The hero, Harish Kalyan deserves every recognition and appreciation as well. For a young man who actually started with one of the most absurdly made Tamil films (Sindhu Samaveli), Pyaar Prema Kaadhal (PPK) is a blessing. A true blessing for both of them. Debutant Director Elan’s semi-refreshingly weaved tale about love, marriage, live-in relationship and the struggles they face, is packaged as a romantic-comedy targeting the youth audience. Once of the recent movies that has indeed pulled off a vibrant and colorful visual treat.
But colours aren’t just enough for a love story that claims to be new and modern. One of the road-bumps in this story travel, is the inconsistent characterisation for me to invest myself emotionally in the characters on screen. Sree (Harish) is a sort of introvert who is the only child in the family. He is very much attached to the family and runs errands for them whenever he is at home. He has an older friend (Munishkanth) who is a tailor. Sree works at an office from which he sees Sindhu( Raiza) working in the opposite building. The film starts with establishing the fact that Sree is already engaged in an one-side love with Sindhu but doesn’t gear up the courage to talk to her. One day, Sindhu enters his office as a new co-worker, he gets shocked and starts doing funny things to get her attention. So far, I feel like I am reading terms and conditions for which I already know my aim is just put a tick. At this point in the film, I am waiting to see that check box.
Even though Sindhu appears in most of the scenes, the story is largely narrated from the hero’s point of view. In many scenes, I wished Sindhu’s character was unfolded for us to see her world. One day, her car is not available. So she calls Sree with whom she had barely established any friendship even after working in his office for a few days. Why didn’t she call her friends? Who are her friends? Who else are there in her life other than the stay-at-home dancer dad (Nagesh’s son Anand Babu)? She brings Sree for clubbing. And again, where are her friends?
Surprisingly, there isn’t even one scene where Sindhu is left on her own. She is either speaking to her dad or Sree. Her role on-paper could have read ‘bold, care-free, modern, speaks her mind.’ But who else does she speak to? We are told that she is an ambitious girl but she only shares her dream with Sree much later. She wants to open a restaurant. So what step does she take to achieve that? In one scene where they already had started their live-in relationship, she prepares something that looked liked rasam and the next shot is shown that they are eating chapatti. (Chapatti and Rasam? Petromax lightey thaan venumaa?)
What is her thought-process? What is her vulnerability? What is her insecurity? What does she like? What does she hate? Where does she go other than dancing in foreign locations?
She drinks.
She goes clubbing.
She hints Sree to get ‘something’ before going to her place.
She explains to the introverted Sree that what they had was just casual sex. And that she doesn’t love him. So this equates to Sindhu being a modern and bold girl? It is still an unconvincing formula because I haven’t seen the world of Sindhu yet.
The film’s great squandered opportunity is the comical element. There are moments that could have been used to elevate the scene with real thought-provoking and self-reflecting humour. When Sindhu requests him to go get ‘something’ for him from the pharmacy and when he finally understands why she keeps nudging, he runs to the store. And the scene ends there.
He being an introvert, may or may not have inhibitions asking for a condom. That could have been some source for genuine humor. Is he excited or nervous at her place? What are their feelings? Why isn’t there any conversation before they got intimate, which could have let the audience to understand both their perspectives and get more connected to the characters?
She seems to be portrayed as a care-free girl of single-parent family who has close bond with her dad yet she grows up not knowing her date of birth because no one has told her. In the name of love, Sree casually tells her how he got her medical data from a hospital that was closed several years ago. He brightens the entire area with light bulbs and celebrates her birthday. Dei, didn’t Shiva in Thamizh padam 2 make fun of this?
Despite these inconsistencies, I did enjoy two or three sequences especially- the intermisstion portion. Before intermission, Sree is seemed to be upset with Sindhu’s decision to not have a relationship. Angrily, he openly announces in an office party that they have done ‘everything’. A follow-up scene in a typical Tamil film is to roar songs like ‘adida avaley or unnai yaar pethan.’ But director Elan’s way of smashing those unreasonably shaming sequence is to let Sindhu asks questions that for many years, audience hoped heroines have asked the many heroes with a stalkish history.
Sindhu questions Sree, “What did you exactly do? Is this even called love? What you have on me, is infatuation. You say you’re brought up in a decent family and what makes you think so when you just openly blurted something that is personal between us? If you think I am a cheap character, then what exactly are you in love with? And you don’t even have the guts to say the word ‘sex’ in front of everyone? And you call yourself matured?”
She flashes a disgusting look at Sree and storms out of the party.
If only the director had sustained more meaningful and strong plot points and scenes throughout the film, it could have been one of those never-seen-before love story. For someone with such great potential to eradicate Tamil cinema cliches, I wonder why he still succumb to showing simple love scenes of waiting for the rain to stop, playing in the rain, picking up and dropping her off at the office/home.
For a film that is discussing about casual sex and live-in relationship, more aesthetically-pleasing sex scenes could have up the game for this rom-com genre. There isn’t much romance or comedy involved in a sex scene where the couple is shown literally rolling under the blanket at speed 1.5x.
This is the equivalent of the 1980s sex scenes where a rotating sombu (small vessel) on the floor signifies love-making process and we are forced to believe that when the rotation of the sombu gradually reduces speed and stops, they are done. Let’s level up, peeps!
Strangely, PPK gave me an experience of equal measure of frustration and hope. With a taboo subject offered in an extensively non-judgemental space, this film has opened platforms for the successors to daringly present their views.
But this is like a lid-open jam bottle. It is without any other cutlery for me to scoop it, or available food items for me to spread the jam on. For people who are satisfied with just an opened jam bottle, PPK will be an ultimate joy. But I am just not so satisfied with a lid-open jam bottle that leaves me with nothing to enjoy with.
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