Puriyatha Puthir Review - Relevant? Yes. Engaging? Mostly yes. But...

Bharath vijayakumar

This much delayed Vijay Sethupathi starrer is a very relevant film that tries to showcase the ugly side of invading someone's personal space and indulging in voyeurism through digital means. LENS that released earlier this year too dealt with the same issue. Puriyatha Puthir which was announced in 2013 is a relatively more mainstream attempt in trying to address this menace. I say relatively because Puriyatha Puthir is not diluted for commercial purposes when I refer it to as mainstream. 

Plot:

A harmless love story turns serious when the guy starts getting private videos of his girlfriend.

I started of this review by calling the film as  a Vijay Sethupathi starrer. This could be as close to the truth as it is far from it. I honestly cannot recollect any star who would be willing to be part of films like these. I am not even talking about image here. Stars have played various characters at different points in their careers - specially abled persons, someone with grey shades and even truly negative characters. But even in those cases the fact that the star is doing something offbeat would be the USP of that film. But this guy is something else. He is fine with just being a part of a film as just a character - an unassuming one at that and played unassumingly by the man.

The problem with the film is that the initial portions never really sucks you in. These scenes are not really bad by any stretch of imagination but if you really had to be hit harder by what follows, the initial romance should have got you more invested. It is too generic - boy meets girl, exchanges pleasantries and a song later they are supposed to be in love.

Well that is how it might happen in real life as well but for this film to work much better you needed to feel their love for each other all the more. Another issue is how the film shows that the wrongdoers have no clue on what is happening around them. After the reveal in the flashback you realize the fact that some of the characters being totally unaware of what is happening around them earlier in the film was a very lazy effort to maintain the suspense.

The suspense itself is played out admirably well and the core theme too has been dealt without much melodrama. If LENS had a scene on how these scandal videos are equivalent to digital rape,there is a well thought out scene here where a guy is made to realize on how it would feel to be stripped naked without consent in front of everyone.

Bottlomline:

Definitely a very relevant and an important film. But judging it as a thriller it falls short. It definitely has you reasonably engrossed but to maintain this suspense factor it has made a few lazy lapses or deliberate misses.

Rating :2.75/5