Narrates A Sensitive Tale In The Most Mature Way. Compelling And Empowering!

Ayali - Narrates a sensitive tale in the most mature way. Compelling and empowering!

ZEE5 is known for constantly producing top-quality and uplifting content in the web series space. Ayali is the new show from the leading platform and it has already created waves in Tamil cinema. This bilingual series is a social comedy-drama, written and directed by Muthu Kumar. Ayali was screened across the state already and won huge appreciation from the film fraternity and audiences alike. Let's see if it's worth all the hype.

Ayali is all about an aspiring young girl named Tamil Selvi (Abi Nakshatra) who struggles to reform the patriarchy and misogyny in her village Veerapannai. Set in 1990, women in the village are forced to discontinue school education and marry off to someone as soon as they attain puberty. People practice these toxic customs due to superstitious folklore about their deity, Ayali. No female child in Veerapannai has completed SSLC because of this tradition and no male child has passed the 10th board exams. The protagonist, Tamil Selvi, fights against ancient beliefs and practices by hiding the truth about her puberty to achieve her goal of becoming a doctor. The rest of the story is about whether Tamil won in her dream and if the village was freed from oppression.

The casting is got to be one of the biggest strengths of Ayali. This show scores big with perfect casting and powerful acting performances. While Abi Nakshatra and Anumol are the show stealers, the other actors also get equal space in this story and many of them are stealing the scene from time to time. Madhan, Linga, Singampuli, TSR Srinivasan, Dharmaraj, Lovelyn Chandrasekhar, Gayathri Thara, Pragadeeswaran, Reshmi, Jenson, Goutham Muthupandi and the rest of the cast deserve a big applause for their acting. Even the cameo roles were highly entertaining.

The best thing about Ayali is how the makers handled sensitive social issues with the utmost maturity. It is not an easy thing to do. More importantly, the show wasn't preachy and turned out to be great edutainment. Muthu Kumar, the writer and director, perfectly maintained apt moods for the scenes throughout the series. The way the scenes have been conceived and executed showcases the sheer brilliance of the maker. Ayali is funny, moving, uplifting, disheartening, infuriating and thoroughly entertaining on the whole. The metaphors weren't overdone and the core message was neatly conveyed to the audience.

On the flip side, the story and screenplay became a bit rushed toward the end. The dialogues were empowering overall but became didactic in a few places. There isn't much to complain about in Ayali other than these minor flaws as the show is technically excellent as well. Revaa's songs and background score were enjoyable amid Ramji's eye-pleasing cinematography and Ganesh Siva's engaging cuts. The colour grading, art direction and other departments also have done appreciable jobs.

Verdict: Hop on to this highly edutaining social satire without any second thoughts.