His son, Major Surya (Suriya again) is informed about his demise but chooses to go ahead with his duty and continue his current assignment – the rescue operation of a kidnapped journalist. The film begins as Krishnan (Suriya) dies due to throat cancer. Then there is the problem of the film’s three hours running time that causes the film to drag on to its ‘happy end.’ The film, though structured as a series of Major Surya’s flashbacks, succumbs to the usual problem that Indian cinema faces – of going neutral to give you the ‘complete’ story. However, the film could well have done without the koothu music number where Surya goes hysterical as he remembers Meghna even if it does move the narrative forward as we see Surya’s descent into drugs. As does Adiyae Kolluthey through which we see his budding relationship with Meghna while Annul Maelae brings out the tender and mature romance between Priya and Surya, nicely contrasted with the exuberance between him and Meghna. For instance the Oh! Shanthi Shanthi song works really well as Surya reaches San Francisco and through the song traces out Meghna. The songs, normally a strength of mainstream Tamil cinema, are generally nicely picturised and it must be admitted here that it is refreshing to see songs depicting emotions and small moments between the characters and having some story progression rather than standard frontal long shot dance movements. Of course, this allows for scenes of Surya to get into drugs and then having to recover through harrowing scenes of withdrawal and no doubt Suriya has performed them well enough, but they loosen the narrative. For instance, considering the relationship the father and son share, you find it odd that the father leaves Surya totally to himself following his return to Chennai after Meghna’s death. Further, too many sequences are totally geared up towards blatant commercial elements of mainstream cinema (Suriya taking off his shirt just to show off his body much too often and unneccessarily) and obvious performance scenes for the actor, which also tend to take away from the narrative. They appear at times to think in terms of shots rather than scenes and story and thus the film lacks a overall narrative cohesiveness.
It appears that the newer lot of Tamil directors overdo the stylish aspect overlooking content. Otherwise, the loose screenplay and meandering storyline doesn’t help even as the film tries to pack in too much for its own good.Īdmittedly, the film, said to based on director Gautham Vasudev Menon’s own life and feelings when he lost his father, is stylish and polished technically but at the cost of storytelling at times. His absolutely rivetting performance(s) lifts the otherwise very so-so film several notches and makes for extremely engaging viewing. Vaaranam Aayiram is unthinkable without Suriya’s brilliant double act of father and son.
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