Bun Butter Jam Review

Ashwin Ram

Premise: Raju is a carefree college student who acts as a good boy to his parents. How he evolves in life when he passes out from the campus, how love and friendship be a vital part in the process forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction: The opening stretch is promising and neatly sets the base, establishing Saranya Ponvannan and Devadarshini characters, they both enjoy full-fledged roles in the film. But after a point things become less creative and more repetitive, however the intentions for their importance is justified at the end. The first half is routine, with very generic romance scenes and age-old tropes with respect to the friendship angle. Being familiar is not the issue, but the screenplay is so dull that most scenes till the interval are extremely predictable which results in boredom. The second half is way better as several plot-points get satisfying payoffs. The approach to give reasoning behind a girl’s break up is valid and relevant, though the Instagram influencer path was silly and targeted solely for the 2K kids in the name of being modern. Vikranth’s character which felt pointless initially lands as a revelation in the latter after his backstory is revealed. There is a terrifically entertaining episode with a strict police officer and his son who plays the lover boy of one of the heroines. The friendship angle lacks depth and is presented in a poor manner. Although Raju’s transformation feels convincing, the climax of him pairing with a girl appeals to be forceful, the message is good but the execution is rushed and not organically brought into the script. And, there is an unnecessary monologue at the end about the dish Bun Butter Jam just because the movie is titled so.

Performances: Raju Jeyamohan needs improvement in many departments, his expressions, body language, voice and dialogue delivery are all unfortunately only on the subpar level. Both the heroines did well, they were casual on-screens and stayed true to their characters. In terms of acting, Saranya Ponvannan and Devadarshini are the two pillars of strength for the flow, their proactive presence elevates the weak scenes from landing flat. Vikranth appears in a neat supporting role and does justice. Sadly no scope for performance or importance in characterization for Charlie.

Technicalities: Barring the amateurly sounding opening song, the other tracks are good and go well with the situations. On the flip side, the background score does not help the flow that much. Nothing exceptional in terms of visuals, yet a neat work that is exactly required for a simple film as such. Quite a lengthy fare, runs close to 2.5 hours and it is a lot for the content it offers, a crisper duration especially some chops in the first hour would have resulted in better engagement.

Verdict: The core idea is the same as the film’s tagline ‘An Arranged Love Marriage’, it goes kind of overboard to somehow land on the assigned mark. A lot of patience is required to get through the first half, post which we are offered a lot of good scenes.

BUN BUTTER JAM - A Watchable Rom-Com That Deserved a Better Initial Hour!

Rating - 2.5/ 5.