After making his silver screen debut playing the second lead in 'Vanavarayan Vallavarayan',  popular Television anchor  Ma.Ka.Pa  Anand has got a promotion as the solo male lead in 'Navarasa Thilagam' directed by debutante Kamran. The star cast, posters and trailers promised a small town based comic caper with scope for romance and family sentiment.  Let’s see whether the film has lived up to the promise.

Moorthy (Ma.Ka.Pa Anand) is a youngster who roams around with his friend cum partner (Karunakaran), making loose attempts to achieve overnight success in Real Estate business. He falls at first sight for Chithra (Srushti Dange) who reciprocates his feelings after initial meetings. Chithra’s father (Jayaprakash) is a big shot in the nearby town and he is making arrangements for the wedding of his elder daughter with Thirunavukkarasu (Siddharth Vipin), a Government Fair price shop supervisor.

Moorthy befriends Arasu in order to get closer to his lover's family. He however stops the engagement of Arasu with Chithra's sister after knowing that it will spoil his chances of getting the hand of his lover.

The rest is how Moorthy solves all odds and marries Chithra with the blessings of her parents.

'Navarasa Thilagam' is that kind of a film which aspires to be funny, throughout, where everything starts as a comedy and ends as a comedy. There hardly 6-7 serious scenes in the film. But thankfully things happening in the name of making fun are really bearable and even laughable at times if not hilarious.
The film is also very decent and never touches the line of crass, that many directors resort to in the name of fun. The film is completely devoid of double entendres and skin show (baring the last song where the heroine appears in glamorous outfits).  Even the serious scenes make a reasonably good impact thanks to neat characterization and the relationships between the characters are well established. Especially the father characters of the hero and heroine (played by two seasoned actors Jayaprakash and Ilavarasu) are refreshing and reputable. The heroine falling for the hero and their love consummating as marriage has been portrayed near convincingly.

On the down side, the film that runs close to 2 and half hours is a bit lengthy. A lot of screen time has been wasted to portray the hero’s funny and failed attempts to settle in life and the film actually starts only from where the hero meets the heroine. There are also some convenient turns of events and changes in the mindset of characters that are not portrayed convincingly. Songs (though limited in number) come as dampeners of pace.

Anand fits well into the character of the boy next door who goes to any length to get his lover. Shrushti Dange is cute as usual and makes the best use of the scope offered by the role to perform well. Karunakaran in yet another hero’s friend role gives a neat.  Namo Narayana as the one who loses everything believing the hero’s tall promises, manages to raise a few laughs.

Siddharth Vipin makes a mark with the character of a spoilt youngster who does stupid things and gets into mess often. It is his character that the script depends heavily for comedy and Vipin fairly succeeds in accomplishing the responsibility. Only sour point is that his character has been used for  the oft repeated portrayal of fat people as those who keep eating always and fart in public places. Hope Tamil cinema comes out of this stereotyped vision about fat people and start portraying them as normal and decent like others.

Jayaprakash and Ilavarasu give solid performances as usual with their well written roles.  Meera Krishnan as heroine’s mother, the actresses coming as heroine’s elder sister and grandmother give notable performances.

Siddharth Vipin has also done the musical score for the film and songs do not make any impact. Rerecording is adequate. Cinematography by Ramesh captures the mood and tone of small towns of Tamil Nadu while Arulmozhi Varman’s Editing could have been crisper.

Verdict : 'Navarasa Thilagam' is a 'Kalavani' kind of film which is not as entertaining but a watchable film that engages the viewer in most parts.