Anthologies or Movies that deal with multiple protagonists are rare and the ones that succeeded in Tamil are ‘Marina’ and ‘Idharkuthaney Aasaipattai Balakumara’. Debutante Maruthupandian in ‘CUAV’ attempts to tell five stories with the central theme being what lies in store for people who come to Chennai to make a living or chase their dreams.
The Story:
Bobby Simha as Chellapandian is an aspiring film director who struggles to make ends meet and keeps shifting bachelor rooms because of problems created by friends especially Prabanjeyan who is a jobless assistant director dependent on Bobby. Then there is Karthik (Linga), who works for a software company and is an expert in taking girls to bed and uses Bobby’s room for the same and he finally gets into big trouble when he cheats and impregnates a divorced girl Vino . Prabanjeyan’s brother’s ten year old son back in the village asks him to come with a bicycle and Prabanjeyan avoids going to the village because he cannot afford it. Much later in the film two more stories are introduced one involving director Maruthupandian himself as a drunkard from Bobby’s village who comes to Chennai to make a living depending on Bobby and there is also Director Alphonse Puthiran of ‘Neram’ fame who plays one of Bobby’s friends who along with his roommate love the same girl and the girl too “loves” both of them!!!
Performances:
Bobby Simha proves that he is indeed a National Award winner. If in ‘Jigarthanda’ he excelled in an over the top performance here he is so subdued and subtle that you see him only as Chellapandian and not as Bobby. Linga as Karthik the womanizer who even prefers to sleep with a girl rather than rush to his hometown when news comes that his mother has had a heart attack gives a solid performance and is an actor to watch out for and so is Saranya who plays Vinodhini with perfection. Prabanjeyan gives comic relief and also emotes well and the girl who plays the house owner’s daughter is quiet apt.
What Works:
Producer-Director Maruthupandian has extracted good performances from every actor in the film and to an extent the narration is natural and the stories involving Bobby, Linga and Prabanjeyan are quiet convincing. Considering the very low budget one cannot complain about technical aspects.
What Doesn’t Work:
Like ‘Marina’ or ‘IABK’ there is no clear theme of characters or screenplay to follow and so the film as a whole fails to connect to the audience and the Director throws us the fourth and the fifth story well after the interval and they hamper the narration and hence after the movie ends abruptly we leave the hall unfulfilled.
Verdict:
Director M.Maruthupandian has no doubt chosen five emotional stories and in fact given a lot of good scenes in ‘Chennai Ungalai Anbudan Varaverkirathu’ and it is unfortunate that the film does not work as a whole. But we can surely wish him better luck next time.
Rating : 2/5
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