Love (Tamil Movie 2023) Review - A Dud Thriller

Ashwin Ram

Love is an official remake of a Malayalam film (2020) of the same title. It stars Bharath and Vani Bhojan in the lead roles.

Premise:

Bharath and Vani Bhojan are a married couple. A year later, a heated argument takes place between them in which Vani Bhojan dies as Bharath bangs her head on the wall in an emotional high.

Writing/ Direction:

The opening was very dull with an arranged dating scene which felt very fake. Soon after, the quarrel portion that moves the story forward is a promising one. The one-line is something that could hold the audience if it is developed well. Here, the screenplay happens to be the worst part of the movie. It is unapologetically stretched out, there’s literally no content to improvise. It is probably worthy for a short film length, as the happenings are extremely boring. Till the interval point, the story feels like it hasn’t even moved an inch forward. The situations are poorly written in a way there is absolutely no tension for the viewers thinking about Bharath getting caught for his accidental crime. And there was no empathy for the dead Vani Bhojan at any place. There are only a handful of plot-points and even that are very vaguely conveyed with zero detailing. The climax is decent with interesting twists and changes the entire fate of the script, but it can be consumed well only if the portions before that are engaging. It tries to be Pizza (2012), but nowhere near it.

Performances:

Bharath looks nice and handsome and there is nothing much to complain about his acting, however his dialogue delivery could have been much more dynamic. Same with Vani Bhojan, her performance is convincing but the dialogue modulation is a very big issue. Vivek Prasanna's characterization is very irritating and unfortunately his presence too. No big importance for Radhi Ravi and Daniel Annie Pope who hardly appear for a cameo.

Technicalities:

Songs are just fillers and don't help the story in any manner, but still a decent work by the composer. But he misses out to elevate the serious situations as the soundtrack isn't that powerful. Simple camera work, neat for the parts except for showing the angles of Vani Bhojan's dead body placed in the restroom. The film is filled with nothing but lags in every scene, an already crisp 2-hour movie would have been easily trimmed by half an hour.

Bottomline

With an interesting screenplay, the twists would have been effective and in fact the whole movie would have become a worthy outing. Good opportunity has been completely ruined.

Rating - 2/ 5