Kayal - A not-so ‘neo-prabhu solomon’ Film!

So far director Prabhu Solomon’s career run has been interesting. In his early days, he made some forgettable but nevertheless interesting movies like ‘Kannodu Kanbathellam’ and ‘King’ that turned out be duds at the box-office - the primal reason being the naiveties in the craft and the narrative. Then he made a character driven movie, ‘Kokki’, with an innovative plot point that had superstitions and false beliefs as supporting pillars. That created some minor ripples, but that wasn’t enough to rock the boat. With his quest to find the elusive box office success, he ended up making ‘Laadam’ which drew inspiration from the Hollywood flick, ‘Lucky Number Slevin’ and that backfired as well due to weak and amateurish characterizations. Poor Mr.Solomon was yet again left to scratch his head to come up with an innovative plot to create magic at the box office. Finally he came up with ‘Myna’, that did a world of good, not only for it’s director, but also for it’s female lead - ‘Amala Paul’. He followed a similar craft and plot-point with ‘Kumki’, which also was equally successful at the box office. Both ‘Kumki’ and ‘Mynaa’ were romantic tragedies that had some intense moments and were narrated within perfect commercial bounds which was reason enough for their successes.

Yet again, the director has come up with ‘Kayal’, a touted to be intense love story which also happens to be his new found love. The movie opens up in the year 2004 in a tsunami hit Kanyakumari where the protagonist is desperately in search of his lady love, ‘Kayal’. Obviously a flashback ensues and the lead pair’s tale of love and separation gets revealed. Did they manage to unite and reciprocate their love with each other forms the crux of this ordinary story that strives hard to strike a chord with the viewer.

The movie seemed to do everything right in the first hour or so, until the lead pair meet and fall in the love with each other. The scenes leading to their meetup were awesomely done and sometimes had me in splits with the funny moments literally turning into some ridiculously choreographed laugh riots. The initial establishment of the hero’s characterization as that of a free-spirited guy who yearns to seek solace by hitch-hiking and traveling around the country with his crony was brilliant. The scene where he gets caught by the cops and end up questioning the very illusion of life was quite interesting. In another scene a cop helps the protagonist where he gets into a soup. At the end of the scene we see a tattoo of the cop’s lady love in his hand. Like these there were some really thought-provoking moments in the movie.

Sadly those moments were few and far between and didn’t manage to add up to the overall craft and narrative. The first half was pacy enough and I honestly didn’t realize the pace until it flashed on screen for the intermission. But during the course of the second half, the movie had so many songs placed close to each other including a ‘kuthu’ number with dancing santas on the beach sands on Kanyakumari. Also another drawback was that the movie spoon feeds the user on what was about to happen well in advance when the lead pair fall for each other. The romance between them and the first spark of love was not all that convincing as depicted in ‘Mynaa’ and ‘Kumki’. Also when the protagonist falls in love, his free-spirited nature takes a kind of a beating even though his crony convinces him (and in essence the viewers) that if he marries Kayal, he could get a ration card, which would in turn help him in getting a passport for international travel. That was an absolute disastrous piece of ‘make-believe’ writing. Also ‘Kayal’ travelling to Kanyakumari in search of his lost love with a piece of rag from his shirt and some naive words from her grandmother was something that suppresses the film from what it really strives to be. We end up watching a melodramatic tale whose last page of script has been foretold without any twists.

Performances were fine enough to usher in some cheers and laughs in the first half. Among the lead pair, Anandhi as Kayal has delivered a very subtle and natural performance and looked perfect for the role with down-to-earth looks which was simple yet convincing. Chandran, the male lead, was not all that effective but his crony Vincent showed some promise. The performance from the supporting cast was effective as well.

Director’s rapport with Imman is one of the few good things that has worked out well. The picturization of songs in some eye-catching locales and the mise-en-scene pulled up to mark the not so distant past has to be appreciated as well. The tsunami portions were also decently done, even though with some tacky frames of CG popping out every now and then.

The movie just manages to pass muster, but is a long shot from the kind of ‘chord-striking’ ability of the director’s last two movies that had some ingrained intensity which was so subtle and ran throughout the narrative. May be it’s time for Prabhu Solomon to shift gears once again and re-discover himself by drifting from intensely poetic romance set in picturesque locales to some other genre that might be desperately waiting to bear his stamp.

Verdict: Average

Rating: 2.5 / 5