Beauty is an enigma. It is not the eye that decides what is beautiful. If that is the case then what you see is what the other person also sees ---in essence there will be a consensus on what beauty is. But it the heart that makes the decision. Hence, the agreeable differences on the issue.
It is this philosophical point that finds lucid amplification in Sundarngudu (a remake of the Tamil hit Peralazhagan). It is a story that is well-known and doesn't need much telling here. Chinni (Surya) is a buck-toothed, hunch-backed youth. He is ugly in a conventional sense. Then there is Karthik (Surya), who is handsome like an Adonis. They are contrasts. If Chinni is loud-talking but essentially coward, Karthik is understated and a brave boxer.
Karthik is in love with his classmate Priya (Jyothika). But like all fathers, hers too is opposed to the marriage. But she is killed by a gangster. Chinni, who by then had seen Priyya, had assured her that he would unite her with her beau. Chinni, however, is already pining for another blind girl who looks exactly like Priya. So when Chinni gets Priya's eyes to the blind girl, there is the quintessential: who will she marry. The ugly Chinni or the heroic Karthik?
The film's strength is its sunny optimism. There are neither patronizing platitudes on deformities nor some high-value sermons on physical disabilities. Chinni's character has a sturdy every-day feel. His exchanges with Vivek, though not exactly politically correct, are hilarious and down to earth. The simple and natural story has a straight-from-the-heart feel. Hence, it succeeds.
Surya and Jyothika have a ball time. They excel in the finely-etched roles. Surya, enjoying a fine run this year, simply excels in the difficult role of Chinni. He has to evoke sympathy of the audience not through his troubles or tragedies but through winsome humour and his own simple ability to laugh at his tribulations.
The only problem for this dubbed version is that some of the humour are region-based and individual specific and its gets lost in translation. Otherwise, director Sasi Shankar (director of the original Kunni Koonan) has done his job to satisfaction.
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