Vaaranam Aayiram -- Movie Review

The most interesting aspect about life is that "it goes on" without waiting for anyone or anything. You can either move on with it or can be left behind to ruminate on the past. When bad things happen, life does not appear to be easy and it is a simple task to be left behind. As someone said "It is not that great men do not fall. It is that they always rise up after their fall". To raise up, dust yourself and keep moving forward requires tremendous will power. This will power or effort to move on either comes from somewhere inside( 'Heart'', as they say) or through an external trigger. Vaaranam Aayiram is one such life journey of a man who overcomes a sad event in his life to become a successful person.

Make no mistake. Vaaranam Aayiram (A thousand elephants) is all about Surya, the actor. He occupies each and every frame in the movie. Some people felt that it was a overdose of a good thing but somehow I never felt that way. Until someone mentioned it, I had not even realized that Surya was virtually present in almost all the scenes in the movie. When Surya can carry a junk movie like "Vel" on his shoulders making that stupid movie watchable, one can easily imagine what he can do when he is offered a movie with a very good plot. He almost lives as those characters and to even mention that he has acted as those two characters is a disrespect to his effort.

If Surya is one of the Heroes of the movie, the other 'unsung' hero of the movie is Harris Jeyaraj. The songs & background score are top-notch and it is really sad to hear that Harris & Gautham Menon will not be working together anymore. I am not sure whether Harris J or Gautham M is the bigger loser but I am confident that the biggest losers would be music lovers like me.

The picturization by Ratnavelu of the songs "Nenjukul" and "Adiyae Koluthe" will remain in my eyes for quite sometime. Then there is Sameera Reddy!!! Do I have to even mention that she looked very beautiful? The surprising thing is that she does a decent job even in the department of acting. This was something that I had not expected and I am very confident of seeing more of Sameera Reddy in several more Tamil movies.

One of the major complaints that I have against this movie is the screenplay. It just failed to keep me continously engrossed. Did Gautham M think that having a screenplay that had few interesting scenes now & then interspersed with lots of dull & flat scenes to be an accurate portrayal of life itself? Whatever the reasoning behind the lousy screenplay, it could turn out to be the difference between a hit & a flop.

Last Cut: Is it a movie that is a must-watch? Of course NOT. But this movie can be watched once for the performance of Surya and the songs. You might have to fight the urge to doze off or walk away at times but trust me, it will be worth the effort!!!

Rating: 7.5/10