Neethaane En Ponvasantham(NEP) Trailer Review   

                                                                   by Raven Review

Right from Minnale, Gautham Menon has grown from strength-to-strength with each film, except for a few slips in the form of Pachaikili Muthucharam and Nadunisi Naaygal. Going by the trailer and promos, Gautham's latest offering Neethane En Ponvasantham(NEP) is expected to be in his sweet-spot. Does the official trailer increase the expectations for the movie?

Gautham is a Master Trailer-maker

Gautham Menon should be credited for making simple, yet effective trailer revealing the basic crux of the storyline, unlike many Tamil directors who throw-in a mish-mash of random shots in trailers. Gautham has immense confidence as witnessed in NEP's intro-teaser which showed mid-range close-ups of hero and heroine sitting in "mottai maadi" talking about sweet nothings during twilight hour. Sheer Elegance. That teaser successfully went on to register more than 1.2 Million views in both Tamil and Telugu.

Strengths

Neethaane En Ponvasantham’s trailer has Gautham Menon’s signature all over it. The trailer follows his usual signature pattern with beautiful visuals fading-in and fading-out with typical voice-over narration told from hero's point of view. 

The expectations from NEP took-off on a different dimension when Maestro Ilayaraja was roped in for the project. With Ilayaraja’s soulful background music, the visuals look beautiful. Jiiva looks smashing in the trailer, both as a school student and as a college student. Post Naan Ee, the people and the critics have started looking at Samantha as a promising talent. She looks convincing in the trailer. After Minnale, Gautham Menon did not have any regular comedians for his films. With Santhanam and Jiiva known for great comedy timing, one can be sure of a few hilarious moments. 

Down-sides

The trailer has shades of "Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya" (probably intentional) due to similar form and structure. There are also references to hero talking about similar "sema feelings", graph notebook as love-diary, etc. Samantha's dubbing lacks clarity and sounds flat at times. This is important since VTV wouldn't have been the same without Chinmayee's excellent voice-acting for Jesse. Also, Gautham Menon singing in his own voice for Jiiva in College culturals (Amalgamation) strikes a sour note. 

Bottomline

If the movie has interesting screenplay, relate-able situations and engaging dialogues without VTV hang-over, 'Neethaane En Ponvasantham' will be another sure hit for Gautham Menon.