Varnam – Movie Review
- Details
- Category: Tamil Movie Reviews In English
- Published on Monday, 10 October 2011 06:18
- Written by Super User
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Cast and Crew
Director: S M Raju
Cast: Giri, Ashwatha, Monica, Sampath, Muthukumar, Gautham and Vijay Sethupathi
Music: Isaac Thomas Kottukapally
Camera: Premkumar
Editing: Madhan Guna Deva
Lyrics: Na. Muthukumar
Producers: Rajendran Sivasankaran
Banner: Media Zen
Release date: 07 October 2011
Movie Review
At times, Tamil cinema happens to see this rare breed - a movie with the perfect blend of those elements of parallel and commercial cinema. And, ‘Varnam’ falls in that breed!
‘Varanam’ is colour. Everyone has different colours and shades in their life. Movie ‘Varnam’ portrays those colours from the life of a teenager!
Mani (Giri) becomes a spoiled brat after his father’s death in a caste clash. Mani’s mother sends him to his uncle Duria’s house. Durai (Sampath) is a very rich landlord and also womanizer. But Mani, while enjoying the life at his uncle’s place, also waits to revenge the man for his father’s killing.
He falls in love with his school classmate Thangam (Aswatha). Kavitha (Monica) is a school teacher who influences and helps Mani to shine in studies.
To the shock of Mani, Thangam is spoiled by his own dear uncle Durai . Marriage is arranged between Durai and Kavitha. But, Mani finds his mentor Kavitha in love with his father’s killer.
Got entangled in a situation to choose between avenging his father’s killing and paying back his well-wishers what Mani decides is the climax of ‘Varnam’.
Giri, as a teenager Mani, brings out that perfect character! He emotes well with all his expressions and reactions in good and bad milieus. Aswatha, who appeared in ‘Onbathu Ruva Nottu, ‘Pirivom Sandhipom’ and ‘Ayyavazhi’, is also another good performer who comes out with a neat act.
But, it is Monica and Sampath who steal the show with their amazing and powerful performances all through the film. Monica as a school teacher excels with her different role of a caring woman, responsible teacher, perfect lover and another ordinary woman of a village delivers a stupendous skill of acting. Sampath too comes out with yet another tailor-made character. With this film, Sampath climbs another big ladder in his ever-raising career graph.
Muthukumar, Vijay Sethupathy and Gautham also prove again that they are good performers.
Debutant director S M Raju has succeeded in his attempt to deliver a good film. This US return film graduate has showcased his directorial skills, in extracting the best from the artists and perfecting the scenes, and writing talents by good characterization. But, screenplay sometimes lags stumbling to pick-up the pace!
The director is assisted by Krishna Da Vinci, Maruthu Pandian, Balaji Tharaneedharan, Stalin and Raju in writing story, screenplay and dialogue. The 5-men army has definitely excelled in the department of story but failed to make their mark in screenplay. Could have worked more on this!
Music is by Isaac Thomas Kottukapally, who did music for the Malayalam film ‘Adaminte Makan Abu’, the Oscar entry from India for this year. His tunes for songs are good and background score adds strength to the script and characters. Na. Muthukumar has penned the lyrics.
Prem kumar has done the neat camera work. Mathan Gunadeva’s editing could have given more cuts to some lagging parts.
‘Varnam’ is produced by Rajendran Sivasankaran under the banner Media Zen. Santosh Sivan is the executive producer.
The film has already made its entry in the London Asian Film Festival and Montreal World Film Festival.
In spite of its few drawbacks the film still scores points with the good storyline, characterization, big acting skills of artists and the good command of S M Raju over his job as director. And, thanks to the thought of S M Raju that he has not gone deep into those caste clashes or any preaching in the story. Lest, it would have spoiled his script further.
If it had cut the lags and perfected the screenplay this wonderfully woven storyline could have made ‘Varnam’ a super good film. But, boredom at places spoils the results of the film.
Still, ‘Varnam’ is definitely a watchable movie if you care for that rare breed of commercial and parallel cinema.
Are you still confused of deciding on watching it? Go get a ticket for ‘Varnam’!
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