Kaatru Veliyidai Review - A serious drama that works on hindsight

PUBLISHED DATE : 07/Apr/2017

Kaatru Veliyidai Review - A serious drama that works on hindsight

Kaatru Veliyidai Review - A serious drama that works on hindsight

Bharath Vijayakumar


Plot: A hardened and self centered man realises the value of love while on the cusp of losing it.

 

The film almost entirely revolves around its two leads and it takes a really long  time for us to relate to Karthi. It is intended that way and we are supposed to grow with him. The characters in the film despise him and so do we. We have seen female characters being designed this way and behave in diametrically opposite ways in a matter of seconds. But here it is the male protagonist and not that he is suffering from bipolar disorder. We hate the character but it is quite later that it strikes us that it is the way it was intended to be. What if we fall in love with someone like him. What if the person who falls for him is an extremely independent and bold girl. She loves him but will not put up with his idiosyncrasies. And for someone like him it hardly matters what others feel. Will he be able to put her aside as he has probably  been doing all his life with other people around him. The key word here is 'probably' . Because these events  aren't shown in the film. We come to know later through Karthi's brother that he has had past relationships. We come to know through RJ Balaji in a scene that Karthi is not serious about relationships or that is how others think about him. So until we come to know all this, it is sort of difficult for us to relate to the film and the fact that the film moves at such a leisurely pace keeps us a little restless at times.


We really do not feel the vibe between the leads when they actually feel it. The backstory of Aditi's brother is then revealed and we now understand her fondness for fighter planes and Karthi. So everything falls in place and you realise that the acting is solid when you join the dots now. What looked like an extremely artificial romantic scene earlier now makes a lot of sense. Throughout these earlier portions, it is as though the film is purely a visual delight without any soul. Whenever Karthi says 'I love you', complete fakeness is written all over it. The film in these parts reminds us of an extremely attractive valentine card we recieve from a person who says he/she loves us but actually we do not feel the love. It is because the character played by Karthi himself is in such a zone. It is not until much later that he comes to terms with his true emotions and so do we. So the empty emotions we felt earlier wasn't a false note from the director.

 

What hurts the film is that it does not have enough of those moments that we can savour. The dining room sequence around Karthi, Aditi and her parents is a knockout.  Karthi is the only one speaking in that scene but we get to know a lot about the remaining 3 characters as well. But there simply isn't enough of these moments. The very first tiff between the leads on a snow capped mountain looks extremely plastic. A fighter plane pilot and a doctor quarrel like kids, close on the heels of an impending danger. We simply do not buy into these make-believe cute scenes.

 

Bottomline:


Kaatru Velliyidai is a film that works on hindsight. Here works implies that it makes sense. But the film definitely needed a higher engagement quotient.


Rating: 2.75/5

 

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