Thavamai Thavamirundu

Cast: Cheran, Padmapriya, Raj Kiran, Sharanya Music: Sabesh Murali Written and Directed by Cheran



It would be unfair if I don't review this movie after creating so much hype and also brazenly proclaiming that I'm a Cheran fan. Being a true fan, I caught the movie the first day first show.

Thavamai Thavamirundu, literally meaning 'A long wait' lived up to the title by all means. First, the movie took a long time for its release. Second, you have to wait long to walk out of the theatre. The movie runs nearly for 200 minutes.

Thavamai Thavamirundu, to my great relief is not about boy meeting girl. Neither is it one of those intellectual stuff those new-age Hindi film makers dish out on gay-issues, adultery or pseudo-secular bantering on Gujarat-riots. It's far simpler and very down-to-earth. This time, Cheran has decided to deal with the relationship between a father and his two sons set in a small-town. Cheran's familiarity with a town or a quasi-village lifestyle and their issues are quite evident and certainly adds strength to his narration. And his attention to details such as the frieghtened kids taking blessings from an elephant, or the newly married wife's sweet nothing's to her husband, etc., bring in small delights.

The big picture though, is not as delightful. Albeit, the movie starts quite promisingly, with the father's struggle to keep his kids happy and ignorant of the poverty and kids, as they grow up, realising their financial status and being in a hurry to grow out of their lifestyle is amazingly depicted energising you with the feeling that you're indeed sitting in a great movie.

Trouble starts when one of the kids elopes and here Cheran loses the objective. The movie drags on and on about the tragic lives of the characters. Almost every character in the movie seems to be suffering from some problem and the collective weight is thrusted on none other than the viewer.

The pace of the movie doesn't add up to comforting you either. Every scene progresses so slowly and the pace doesn't seem to add up to anything. At times the scene lingers on long after it met its purpose. And you wonder it is because something else is going to happen. But nothing happens and the scene slowly -very slowly- fades out. Some of the dialogues remind you of the family sagas of the sixties and some straight out of late 70s melodramas. And the hangover from Autograph too shows up its traces. The younger son's sudden raise -from abject poverty- to upper-middle class status a la Rajinikanth flicks is the biggest spoiler. I was itching to rewind one hour of the movie to see if I can change the course of the movie. I sincerely hope Cheran goes back to the editing table and loses the flab.

And to add to his woes, he has donned a role that has so much meat that requires someone of Shivaji or Mohanlal's calibre. Cheran fails miserably at histrionics making things more difficult for him.

What saves ultimately is the authenticity and native background. Cheran's greatest strength has been the nativity and his ability to deal with very genuine non-intellectual problems. Here, he truly scores. The movie starts somewhere around early 80s and the social references to the period exhibits Cheran's commitment to honest cinema.

All said and done, the movie is still far better than those so-called racy-entertainers or the pseudo-intellectual stuff dished out in the recent past. Autograph was the last Tamil movie I sat through without once squirming in my seat. Thavamai is the next. That's speaking a lot for Cheran. And Tamil movies. The sad part however, is, Thavamai Thavamirundu misses becoming a classic by a mile.

I orignally thought I'd write 'by a whisker'.