SIR Review - Quite a Stressful Experience!

Ashwin Ram

SIR is a rural drama starring Vemal and Saravanan in the lead roles. Directed by Bose Venkat and the music is composed by Siddhu Kumar.

Premise:

Saravanan is a retired Government school professor. His son Vemal is also in the same profession who gets transferred to the school in his hometown. The problems he faces in trying to develop the school’s infrastructure forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

The film conveys a social message that education should be feasible for everyone irrespective of their caste, gender, financial status, etc. In the attempt of presenting this thin line, it tries to be many things, and are scattered all over the place. It starts as a subject that deals with old-age issues, later we realize that it speaks about nepotism when Saravanan uses his influence to transfer Vemal to the school in his village, and finally we understand it as a generational curse, when they all get mentally affected. There is a silly love track that involves Vemal who behaves like an imbecile at school in the name of being a teacher, his dad Saravanan yells at him and preaches him to be a responsible professor by explaining the history of the scholars we have come across. We land in a mindset that the story is about Vemal’s character arc, but a big no. There is this entire devil’s worship subplot that exists in their village for decades that has a connection in the poorly constructed flashback and a lame conclusion in the climax. Turns out there is a twist, every single situation that took place is revealed as a masterplan by a character played by the producer’s son, is this a metaphor or what? All said and done, all the subplots and the scenes revolving around the main story are presented in an outdated fashion, cringe to the core. 

Performances:

Vemal is fine in the second half when he deals subtly, his exaggerated acting during the school portions in the initial half are irritating. Saravanan has delivered a decent performance out of all the other supporting artists, he also had the scope to do so. Chaya Devi Kannan fits well for the rustic tone of the film, nothing worthy to mention in particular. The villain role played by Siraj overacts from the start to the end, his character is also weakly staged and hence the twist fails big time.

Technicalities:

Siddhu Kumar’s songs are one of the better elements in the film, though his background score is loud at times, we can take it as a tool he has used to deviate from us focusing on things that are happening on screen. No big complaints about the camera work, the story takes place in the 80s and the colour tone is apt for the time period. Editing ends up as a big mess, the runtime is around 130 minutes, but it feels to be going on for one whole day due to the existing countless lags and unwanted sequences.

Bottomline

The message is a much-seen one, but the issue is not with the familiarity of the plot, it is the melodramatic treatment and a monotonous screenplay that results in an unbearable watch.

Rating - 1.5/ 5