POR Review - A Boring College Flick With Zero Emotional Connect!

Ashwin Ram

POR revolves around a set of college students, starring Arjun Das and Kalidas Jayaram in the lead roles. The film is directed by David and Solo fame Bejoy Nambiar.

Premise:

How a personal conflict that happened during the boarding school days of Arjun Das and Kalidas Jayaram outbreak into a college gang war, also how the other students get affected due to the ego of these men forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

The list of checkboxes that the film tries to tick are more than a handful, so everything feels so rushed. There are way too many characters and each of them have their own on-going drama, since the establishment is hurriedly done, we don’t get to feel for any of them when they go through an emotional wave. The conflicts are quickly thrown on-screen in a snap, even the two core setups felt like watching in a fast-forward mode, so there is absolutely no connection between us and what is happening in the movie. Most importantly, the college world is built in a very artificial way, said to be happening in Pondicherry, but everything felt very fake including the locations, choice of words for the dialogues, costumes, etc. Also, the character behavior, reasoning for the quarrel and the way it has been handled are all alienated. The story also touches politics in a very lethargic manner without going deep enough inside the content. The single-shot treatment in the climax is appreciable but it didn’t make much of a difference as the screenplay barely created any tension, hence the flat payoff.

Performances:

As usual a raw act from Arjun Das and he fits correctly for his role. Kalidas Jayaram who was impressive with his previous works didn’t really carry his character well here, his dialogue delivery majorly spoiled his scenes. Neat performances by the two leading ladies Sanchana Natarajan and Bhanu Parvathimurthy, they carried themselves strongly, could only wish their characterizations were more powerful. Tonnes of other artists didn’t really make any mark with their acting or impactful roles.

Technicalities:

Following the steps of previous films, Bejoy Nambiar opts for a bunch of musicians in this film too, the songs are good at least during the watch and the background score adds value to the weak content. Good visuals from the start to end and there is an evident effort from the cameraman to provide a quality output, however the handling of zooms and focus could have been better in the climax. Clumsy editing which makes an already away film even more odd, but a couple of cut-patterns trying to link the main conflict with the passing clouds are interestingly done.

Bottomline

Had all the traces to be an impactful flick, but nothing works well as the narrative is random with so many underdeveloped characters and underwhelming situations. The look and feel is also artificial, also none of the elements are relatable.

Rating - 2/ 5