Cheran’s Autograph!
Autograph talks about a tamizhan’s life from school days till he gets married. The story starts with Cheran in Eggmore and travels back with him as he goes to his native village to invite his friends, teachers and childhood crush for his wedding. His next checkpoint is Kerala where he recalls how he fell in love with a mallu girl there. Then comes back to Chennai as he gets married.
There is not much of unexpected twists or turns in the movie and it just depicts the happenings of the Hero’s life. Nothing technically great in the movie and it moves like a slow rickshaw instead of a fast paced auto.
Surprisingly Cheran lacks variety of expressions and one gets the feeling that he does nothing more than wiping his tears off. Definitely the essential chemistry between the lead pair Gopika and Cheran is missing. Cheran has a touching way of portraying the romance between the lead pair in his films (paartheeban-meena, TharunKumar-shobika, murali-meena). Unfortunately the romantic sequences in Autograph fail to leave any impact on the audience. In future, Cheran should avoid talking to the audience directly (camera) coz it doesn’t make much impact and might backfire.
Most of the sequences remind Azhagi, Marocharitra and Vikraman movies. And there is no strong reason for Sneha’s thick friendship with the Hero. So thick that she even delays performing last rights to her mother. Unrealistic!!
All the four girls have given a wonderful performances and the rest of the cast have also lived upto the expectations. Gopika and Sneha deserve special mention. Rajesh and Ilavarasu leave impact though their portions are small. The camera crew (4) has done justice to the movie. They manage to bring out the contrast in the 4 places. Music is good. A couple of numbers leave you humming.
Cheran is one of the few film makers in Tamil industry who believes that a decent and no-nonsense presentation will attract crowd and make money.Truly Autograph is another decent presentation. But it remains there and doesnt go anywhere beyond that to keep the audience glued to the screen. A taut screenplay and a different lead might have helped!