‘Naane Varuvean’ movie review: Dhanush, Selvaraghavan are in fine form, but the film stops short of being great

The flip of a coin would decide the interconnected lives of dual brothers. One is an animal and the opposite is a skilled animal, as Kamal Haasan famously mentioned about enjoying twin brothers Nandhu and Vijay in his influential Aalavandhan (2001), primarily based on the story Dhayam written by Haasan. Let’s handle the elephant within the room; Naane Varuvean and Aalavandhan are two completely different movies. However it actually is difficult to not consider the similarities these two share: the dual brothers trope and interconnected destinies, the uncared for older brother being the villain and having daddy points, amongst different issues. 

I do get it, although. It’s not proper to attract comparisons between the 2 movies, even when they’re lower from the identical fabric. As a psychological thriller, Aalavandhan was, the truth is, revolutionary for its instances in the way in which it understood the psychological trauma of Nandhu’s compulsive psychological sickness. Haasan’s script was extra dense and curious to maybe see the place Nandhu would go primarily based on his situation. The character was off to a spot the place there was no coming again. That was Aalavandhan. The script had a masterful trigger and impact: Nandhu was mentally unwell as a result of of the abuse he needed to face from his father and stepmother. He kills them as a result of of the delusions he sees of his useless mom. He desires to ‘save’ his brother Vijay from his spouse as a result of he sees a mirrored image of their stepmom in her. He desires to kill Vijay’s unborn child as a result of he thinks the latter’s spouse is mendacity, like his stepmom.

However in Naane Varuvean, there’s a huge hole proper on the centre of the screenplay (written by Dhanush) that fails to handle the query of why. Slightly, what’s the character’s motive? As a result of it doesn’t have solutions, we’re left to attract our personal conclusions. In Aalavandhan, as an example, one may argue that Nandhu was made a circumstantial villain. However in Selvaraghavan’s movie, the older brother Kathir (Dhanush will get a king’s reception from followers when he seems as the dual) is imagined as only a pure pressure of evil. Maybe that method, you possibly can name Naane Varuvean because the second instalment in Selvaraghavan’s Good vs Evil trilogy that started with the principally fascinatingNenjam Marapathillai. Now the draw back to having two Dhanushs in a movie about good and evil, is that we care little concerning the good man and anticipate the precise “hero” to reach. And he does, solely on the interval level.

Naane Varuvean continues to be a most fascinating addition to Selvaraghavan’s long-list of fascinatingly imperfect movies. However you do get a way of the story being incomplete right here, for it wanted higher writing and extra fleshed-out scenes from Dhanush.

I had virtually no issues with the primary half. Handled like a folklore, the movie dives proper into the story of the dual brothers, Kathir and Prabhu. Their very nature is established within the opening scene the place Kathir will get an earful for setting somebody’s petticoat on fireplace. His father beats him to pulp and ties him round a tree as punishment. Kathir escapes. There’s a beautiful second that continues to be simply beautiful as a stand-alone scene. When Kathir runs into the forest, he will get hunted by somebody like an historic spirit (performed by Selvaraghavan). The boy’s eyes cease him from being killed. He lets Kathir free and asks him to run for his life. Kathir, nonetheless, kills him. The hunter due to this fact turns into the hunted.

There may be, after all, no logical rationalization to why Kathir lives a twin life; a human within the daytime and a werewolf at night time. However this scene jogged my memory of the beautiful Australian horror You Received’t Be Alone (I caught this at Sundance Movie Competition earlier this yr), the place a witch kidnaps a younger lady and turns her right into a shapeshifter main the lifetime of a human and a witch on the identical time.

Discover the title, which itself is a throwback to the music from Yaar Nee? (1966). That movie was about reincarnation however right here, Kathir re-enters Prabhu’s life. Within the current, Prabhu leads a contented life with spouse Bhuvana (Indhuja) and daughter Sathya. He’s a caring father. A lot in order that when Bhuvana desires a second little one, he says, “I don’t wish to share my love for Sathya.” We all know he’s terrified of his older brother, however what makes him say this? What does this say about Kathir and him as twins? Did he have an issue with Kathir due to the shared love? Or is it as a result of he’s evil? The movie lacks readability in defining the boundaries of its characters, and its two-hour length isn’t serving to both. At the very least a bit of pages from the screenplay appears to be lacking.

There may be urgency to dive straight into the battle: two montage songs are pictured to ‘present’ Kathir and Prabhu’s loving households. We all know nothing concerning the equation Kathir shares together with his household, and Prabhu together with his, besides that they’re loving and caring. And these are essential for us to really feel the chills and thrills. When Dhanush is launched as Kathir with a hair-raising ‘Veera Soora’ from Yuvan Shankar Raja, you count on the movie to be thrilling from there on. Come on, let’s admit…we love to look at heroes preventing themselves on display. However you get the sensation that the makers simply wished to complete the film and be executed. The difficulty can also be with Dhanush’s script… it’s as if he was so impressed by how convincingly he may pull off Kathir and sleepwalk Prabhu that he maybe didn’t care a lot to put in writing an emotionally-convincing plot with these characters. That’s the reason when Prabhu will get a second little one ultimately, you simply marvel on the concept. It makes you’re feeling nothing.