Karthik(“Simbu” Silambarasan), a 22 year old engineering college dropout, dreams to become a movie director. Being jobless, he lives with his parents and leans on his dad, Sivakumar(Kitty), to meet his expenses. Through common friends, he gets acquainted with Ganesh(Ganesh) a cameraman who introduces him to the director K S Ravikumar(K S Ravikumar in a cameo). K S Ravikumar promises Karthik a chance as an assistant director in his next movie.
While waiting for the opportunity to materialize, Karthik meets Jessie(Trisha Krishnan) and falls in love with her at first sight. Jessie is the daughter of his landlord Joseph(Babu Anthony) and Karthik along with his family has moved into Joseph’s house on rent recently. As Karthik struggles to catch Jessie’s attention, his sister dissects the compatibility criteria for him.
Jessie is a Christian and Karthik is a Hindu.
Jessie love Mathematics while Karthik is an engineering dropout
Jessie is older to Karthik by one year!
Karthik is not disheartened. And so begins a love story that spans 3 years and 3 cities(Chennai, Alapuzha and New York).
Gautham Menon writes and directs this movie. He has concentrated on the two lead characters – Karthik and Jessie – and uses Karthik’s perspective to tell the story. He has chosen the right actors for these roles, extracted the best performances out of these actors and captured excellent chemistry between them. He also captures the various phases of love – innocence, longing, ego clashes and even lust – in such a way that the story and presentation is elevated to a level above that of an ordinary boy-meets-girl story. The story can be divided into three acts – the first comprising of meeting & wooing, the second act dealing with confusion & breakup and the final act is the conclusion. Gautham, as the writer, presents a fantastic first act, a repetitive and exhausting second act and a confusing last act. As a result, the audience leaves the movie hall confused with a bitter taste in the mouth when the credits start rolling. The final ten minutes is not something seen in an usual romantic movie and also makes the audience to revisit the movie in their minds.
A R Rahman’s music blends with the backdrop – be it Malta, Alapuzha, Chennai or New York. But the background music is loud at times. The electric guitar blazes loudly and distracts us from the wonderful performances of the lead pair.
Manoj Paramahamsa handles the camera. The camera here plays the role of voyeur. The perspectives quickly change from Karthik to a third party spying on the couple. The camera, characteristic to other movies directed by Gautam Menon, is always on the move hungry to absorb anything and everything that comes in the way of the lead actors. Even the close up shots are beautiful.
“Simbu” Silambarasan impresses as Karthik. His Karthik is very focused on Jessie but not obsessed. He urges her to look beyond the incompatibilities, to trust and to give him a chance. For the first time in his career, he doesn’t go overboard in his portrayals. He still display flashes of his brand of humor. But the emphasis is on the dialog and not on gimmicks.
Trisha Krishnan transforms into Jessie effectively. She is devoid of makeup and the colors of her costumes are subdued. Yet, she looks beautiful. Her Jessie changes with each act. From a silent, curious yet distant Jessie in the first act, she transforms into confused lover in the second act. Just when you think this is the final surprise, the third act brings more surprises. This is a difficult role. But Trisha handles this with ease.
“You are an awesome man”, says Jessie to Karthik. Karthik immediately responds back holding her hands and pushing her to a wall, “You are an awesome lady”. Wish I could say the same about the movie! Even with it’s flaws, watch this for the innocent romance in the first act, Simbu’s sober act, Trisha’s Jessie and Gautham Menon’s direction.
Language: Tamil
Genre: Romance
Rating: ***
Picture Courtesy: Wikipedia
Tags: Movies,Silambarasan,Simbu,Trisha Krishnan,Kitty,Babu Anthony,Gautham Menon,A R Rahman,Manoj Paramahamsa,Romance
I Loved all the GM movies and also i loved all his characters.My friends told it is a good one till interval and post interval part is not so good.So finally i decided to go for MNIK yesterday :)
ReplyDeletethanks buddy:)
ReplyDelete@Anish - You should watch this although it is not a thriller like his earlier movies.
ReplyDelete@Ramesh - :)
I liked this movie and would also rate a 3 star. I am very chosy when it comes to movies. The movie songs prompted me to see it and I liked what I saw. Gautham Menon's movie has a class of its own. But its always a little too long. This movie is also 20 minutes too long. My first ever Simbu movie and I liked his performance as Karthik.
ReplyDelete@Biju - The length was probably due to the breakup part where things were at a standstill! The characters were repeating the same thing again and again! If this is your first ever Simbu movie, you have missed all his "over-the-top" acting! No doubt Simbu is talented. But it took a Gautam Menon to show us how talented he is!
ReplyDelete