Login/Sign Up
Pyaar Prema Kaadhal Review-A Breezy romance that delightfully tackles complex emotions
Bharath Vijayakumar
Cinema as a medium for long has either reduced love to a mere prop in aiding a narrative or romanticized it beyond reasoning. Well, you cannot fault the makers, as love is an emotion that can mean different things to different people. Very few films try to explore love beyond the surface attraction and go into the complexities when bringing together two people with entirely different perspectives about love. And when they do, more often than not it turns out to be a heavy film that focusses on the pain that this emotion could bring about. Elan's Pyar Prema Kadhal is an excitingly refreshing take on love that treats the emotion for what it is.
The first few minutes of the film gives you that certain feel that this is an output from a confident filmmaker. A mother is listing out her preferences for a suitable match for her son. As simple as the scene may be, it also means that you are straight into one of the conflicts that is going to arise later in the film. More importantly, a couple of crucial characters and their way of thinking are already established here. What we have very next is Sree(Harish), so smitten by his love for Sindhuja(Raiza) who works in the next building to his office that all he does the entire day is keep catching glimpses of her. Okay! So you wonder what is the difference here. A hero in love with someone whom he hardly knows and possibly this is another film that is simply going to translate pure physical attraction to love. Well, for a while that is how the film seems to proceed. Breezy – yes. Entertaining – yes. But there is also this sense that haven't we seen all this before and we know certainly where it is heading to. But Elan has other ideas. He starts to dig into areas our films seldom do and that includes the word that Sindhu describes as something that the hero is even afraid to speak in the open – 'SEX'.
The best aspect of the film is that the director makes certain statements but at no point ridicules the characters (in his film) that might not agree to his point. He very clearly establishes what love means to him and how our society treats marriage as a compulsion. But Elan also displays that rare maturity of being empathetic with every character out there. They might be wrong but there is this effort to show that their intentions too are genuine. Every character out there means something to the film. When you think that someone like Munishkaanth is there only for comic relief, there are scenes later in the film that make you understand that a lot of thought has gone into writing each character. One particular scene in the film literally rubbishes the concept of love that is sold to us in the mainstream medium. In retort to a guy who says that he fell in love with a girl with a cheap character, the girl replies 'how did you fall in love with someone without even knowing her character?'. The concept of lust, camouflaged as love all along is stripped naked right in this scene. The film does not make judgments but certainly demarcates the two emotions. Lust is definitely a part of love but mere lust does not translate to love.
The conflicts in the film are simple and easily relatable. Friendship vs Love. Love vs Lust. Marriage vs Live-In. Parents vs Personal life. Career aspirations vs Emotional dependency. Elan touches upon all these areas quite convincingly and most importantly without melodrama. Harish and Raiza share a wonderful rapport on screen. It is heartening to see a soft spoken and timid hero (by conventional mainstream cinema standards). More heartening is the fact that his nature is not a source of mockery. Masculinity and femininity are biological traits and not character traits dictated by gender is what Elan probably wants us to understand. ( The timid – brave pair in this movie had me thinking about when did I see something like this before. Raja Rani did come to mind though the comparisons should stop here. Trivia: The same actor plays the hero's father in both the films!)
Yuvan's score is so enchanting that you don't mind the songs that pop in so frequently. You would see this film being simply classified as an urban musical love story. That it certainly is. But it also is so much more. The convenient closure did leave me a little skeptical at first. But then I realized that simple straightforward decisions like the one in the climax actually eliminates so much of misery that we put upon ourselves fearing societal approval.Treat it logically and without much fuss, most problems do seem to have an easy solution.
Bottomline
It is not often that you would associate a lighthearted film to being meaningful. But here is one from a debut filmmaker. Pyaar Prema Kadhal might be as simple as its title. It is about Love. But it does not merely celebrate the emotion but also deals with its implications.
Verdict: 3.5/5
The first few minutes of the film gives you that certain feel that this is an output from a confident filmmaker. A mother is listing out her preferences for a suitable match for her son. As simple as the scene may be, it also means that you are straight into one of the conflicts that is going to arise later in the film. More importantly, a couple of crucial characters and their way of thinking are already established here. What we have very next is Sree(Harish), so smitten by his love for Sindhuja(Raiza) who works in the next building to his office that all he does the entire day is keep catching glimpses of her. Okay! So you wonder what is the difference here. A hero in love with someone whom he hardly knows and possibly this is another film that is simply going to translate pure physical attraction to love. Well, for a while that is how the film seems to proceed. Breezy – yes. Entertaining – yes. But there is also this sense that haven't we seen all this before and we know certainly where it is heading to. But Elan has other ideas. He starts to dig into areas our films seldom do and that includes the word that Sindhu describes as something that the hero is even afraid to speak in the open – 'SEX'.
The best aspect of the film is that the director makes certain statements but at no point ridicules the characters (in his film) that might not agree to his point. He very clearly establishes what love means to him and how our society treats marriage as a compulsion. But Elan also displays that rare maturity of being empathetic with every character out there. They might be wrong but there is this effort to show that their intentions too are genuine. Every character out there means something to the film. When you think that someone like Munishkaanth is there only for comic relief, there are scenes later in the film that make you understand that a lot of thought has gone into writing each character. One particular scene in the film literally rubbishes the concept of love that is sold to us in the mainstream medium. In retort to a guy who says that he fell in love with a girl with a cheap character, the girl replies 'how did you fall in love with someone without even knowing her character?'. The concept of lust, camouflaged as love all along is stripped naked right in this scene. The film does not make judgments but certainly demarcates the two emotions. Lust is definitely a part of love but mere lust does not translate to love.
The conflicts in the film are simple and easily relatable. Friendship vs Love. Love vs Lust. Marriage vs Live-In. Parents vs Personal life. Career aspirations vs Emotional dependency. Elan touches upon all these areas quite convincingly and most importantly without melodrama. Harish and Raiza share a wonderful rapport on screen. It is heartening to see a soft spoken and timid hero (by conventional mainstream cinema standards). More heartening is the fact that his nature is not a source of mockery. Masculinity and femininity are biological traits and not character traits dictated by gender is what Elan probably wants us to understand. ( The timid – brave pair in this movie had me thinking about when did I see something like this before. Raja Rani did come to mind though the comparisons should stop here. Trivia: The same actor plays the hero's father in both the films!)
Yuvan's score is so enchanting that you don't mind the songs that pop in so frequently. You would see this film being simply classified as an urban musical love story. That it certainly is. But it also is so much more. The convenient closure did leave me a little skeptical at first. But then I realized that simple straightforward decisions like the one in the climax actually eliminates so much of misery that we put upon ourselves fearing societal approval.Treat it logically and without much fuss, most problems do seem to have an easy solution.
Bottomline
It is not often that you would associate a lighthearted film to being meaningful. But here is one from a debut filmmaker. Pyaar Prema Kadhal might be as simple as its title. It is about Love. But it does not merely celebrate the emotion but also deals with its implications.
Verdict: 3.5/5
DeAr Review - A Distant and Disjoint Drama!
Romeo Review: Decent Entertainer Laced With Relata...
Kalvan Review - Steals Nothing But Our Time!
J Baby Review: Has Good Moments, But Overly Stretc...
Guardian Review: Template Horror Thriller Film
ATHOMUGAM Review - Interesting Content That Deserv...