Premise: Kishan Das joins a matrimony firm where Shivathmika Rajkumar is his boss. The former believes in pure love while the latter trusts in matchmaking. How these two contradictory characters fall for each other is the remaining story of the movie.

Writing/ Direction: The film tends to convey that understanding a person and loving them unconditionally is the way to go for a healthy relationship. It tries to be commercial with some filmy approach and also ticks the emotional quotient checkbox by being faithful to the content. ‘Aaromaley’ title is justified as the hero gets influenced to immediately fall in love with someone after watching Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya. STR has given voiceovers, milking VTV to the fullest by uttering the famous lines from it, rather than utilize him as an anchor to effectively convey the subject’s intention. Likewise there are multiple Gautham Menon movie references, in fact the treatment itself is so wannabe GVM, there are mentions highlighting other older movies as well and the film’s originality goes for a toss. Starts off in a rushed manner with an array of silly scenes, gets to a nice shape after Kishan Das becomes responsible and joins work. It was a brisk show from there till midway, establishing a couple of important setup plot-points and a solid conflict is placed at the interval block. The real issue of the film lies in the payoff stage, none of the subplot closures are organic, they suddenly occur without being coherent with the main picture. The point of view of the narrative keeps switching from one character to another as per the director’s convenience, not revealing Shivathmika’s backstory entirely is understandable, but why tease us with some traces of it. A particular sequence taking place at the heroine’s house which is the starting point of the lead pair’s mutual admiration has come out beautifully, packed with great staging too at the office space, the follow-up montages are also lovely. Unfortunately the drama that unfolds between them later needed more flavour, the cinematic touches towards the end lack finesse and lands in an amateurish manner. Hence the climax is not impactful enough. The monologue of Kishan Das’ mother is very sensible and clap-worthy, but the context gets randomly linked with the actual breaking point of the leads. Humour falls flat, the dialogues don’t pack a punch and they constantly keep quoting to some examples.

Performances: Kishan Das looks so good on-screen, he effortlessly carries himself especially in the light-hearted portions, quite convincing in the places where he got to be loud too. Mature performance from Shivathmika Rajkumar as the boss lady by keeping her attitude calculative and letting the character take over. Superb roles for both the primary artists, despite some rough patches on the road, their arcs are meaningful. Supporting characters are underwhelming with just minimal importance, except for VTV Ganesh who has also not been utilized to full throttle. The base is neat, he has naturally played his age with a terrific scene where he blasts the lead actors. Prolonging the reveal of his health condition added zero value and what a forceful closure to his character. Harshath Khan disappoints, his jokes didn’t really land as intended and he just tags along as the hero’s friend with no real purpose. Santhana Bharathi helped with some quirks here and there, but his re-entry at the end was odd.

Technicalities: Siddhu Kumar’s songs are a misfire, romance is generally his forte, but he didn’t really justify the genre this time. The background score is somewhat convincing, but nothing really stood out and there are sound mixing issues throughout with no separation clarity in the audio. Quality work by the camera team, they have given what is exactly required for such a movie and the colour tones are also under control. Simple and tidy edit pattern with no unnecessary gimmicks, the placement for the couple of revealing shots were in sync with the narrative.

Verdict: Sloppy start, yet the contradictions between the leads form an interesting conflict. Some delightful moments, a few worthy plot-points add to the credible setting. Humour falters big time with underwhelming payoffs and a cinematic finale that misses on the feel-good factor.

AAROMALEY - Flat yet Watchable for the Lightheartedness!

Rating - 2.5/ 5.