Yet another movie is here, with the very same invariably repeated theme of obsession. AR Gandhi Krishna whose ’Engineer’ (with Rahman’s music) stuck long back, is here to offer us a movie that safely rides on the technical crew and the glamour of the lead lady.
’Chellamay’ opens up introducing the lead pair as a newly married couple in goa.Then it takes us into the flashbacks to introduce the characters and the related stuff.Mythili(Reemma) is the neighbour of Vishwa(Bharath), son of a rich business man.A mother-less boy Vishwa’s whole world of affection confines to his neighbour Mythili, she is literally everything for him.
Here comes the hero Raghunandhan (debutant Vishal), an income tax officer who falls for Mythili when he comes to raid Vishwa’s house.After some singing, dancing at Andamans, followed by some cinematic hiccups, Mythili and Raghu get married and settle in goa. Trouble starts when the obsessive Vishwa who thinks that Raghu is the obstacle in his peaceful life with Mythili, kidnaps Mythili, then hero’s rescuing of his heroine forms the rest of the film.
So, now you have heard this type of story somewhere else, right?..you can guess the ending too, and I can assure you that your guess won’t go wrong if you are a movie buff. But the director accepts that there is nothing new in the story but only a different execution, and he justifies it to a considerable extent. Reemma, on whose character the entire story revolves, has tried her level best to justify the meaty role she has got, though she is convincing in the serious shots, looks childish and artificial at points.
Vishal the debutant makes an impression for the role given to him, though one may not see him as a perfect hero material. Bharath does his role commendably, Vivek provides the required comic relief and quietly disappears once the hero needs to show the audience that he is the hero.
As the story has nothing new to offer, the screenplay is the one that must lift the movie, the director has done a convincing job here, though one’s tired of watching these flashback structure in so many movies these days(you may be reminded of Alaipaayuthey while watching this one too).The hero’s belief on the old drunkard lady’s words near his house looks very much contrived, but thankfully the hero realises the truth very soon (by watching his wedding video anyway) and that’s a relief.One wonders whether the director decided the locations for the climax first and then went for writing the script of the climax.The climax runs relentlessly and looks like the director went on to add on whatever that came to his mind to make it racy and it ends up in a location that gives a good feed of visuals to K.V.Anand’s camera.
K.V.Anand’s cinematography is the most commendable aspect of the film, the song ’Kaadhalikkum aasaiyilai’ shot at Andaman’s is a visual delight, though it largely appears as an inspired version of ’Uyirin uyire’ of Kaaka kaaka in the choice of location and choreography.Harris jayaraj gives an Ok score, ’Kaadhalikkum..’ is a peppy number..’Vellaikaara..’ is a melody.Vairamuthu as usual lifts the lyrical quality of the songs.Use of fast cuts, only at the required places proves that V.T.Vijayan is a veteran.Harris gives a convincing background score, though one wonders what’s the need for some grand violins when the hero playfully chases his sister’s children.
On the whole , a movie to watch if you like to get entertained.For years the heroines have repeated the cliched lines ’I will be glamorous, only(?) if it’s in-built in the story’, here Reemma(she has changed her spelling according to numerology I heard, this is not a typo anyway) can safely mouth those words, as all the skin shows of hers are into the script and don’t really touch the border of vulgarity mostly..This movie is for you if you want a weekend time pass with your friends and am sure you are going to forget this once out of the theatre.