When Love Feels Like Magic, It’s called Destiny. When Destiny Has A Sense of Humor, its Called Serendipity.
From the movie “Serendipity”
In a recent interview to The Hindu, the director of the film “Jay Jay” vehemently denied that his film is NOT a remake of Serendipity. He further added that there are so many films where we have a boy searching for a girl and his film is one of them. So, when I watched Jay Jay, it was natural for me to compare these 2 films to find whether the director was really “inspired” by Serendipity. Let us see. …
Jagan (Madhavan) happens to meet Jamuna (Amoha) at a shopping mall. It is love at first sight for Jagan. He invites her for a coffee and conveys his interest to her. She asks Jagan to write his address in a 100 rupee note writes her address on the other side and gives it to the waiter. She then gives a lecture on fate and says that if fate really wants them to meet within 1 year, then one of them would come across this 100 rupee note and leaves him without even saying good bye. Our hero, Jagan tries his best to find the hundred rupee note but is not very successful in the beginning. Meanwhile, Seema (Pooja) falls in love with Jagan .She conveys her interest on him to her brothers who happens to be very influential in state politics...Jagan is compelled to say “yes” to this proposal by his father and Pooja’s brothers .Jamuna also gets engaged to somebody, by then...But even when they are engaged, they are not able to forget each other. The rest of the story deals with their attempts to find each other and whether they meet each other.
Madhavan performs his role with ease. He does overact in a few scenes though... But then, why does he look unkempt throughout the film??!He should stop acting as a college student in his future films! Amoha fails to impress us in her role as Jamuna...In fact, this is the central role in this film.No doubt, Jamuna has to undergo a variety of emotions like happiness , surprise, shock , sadness, excitement and so on…But , Amoha seems to have a stone face through out the movie ! It is just not possible for us to find whether she is feeling sad or happy!? Pooja as the girl, who falls in love with Jagan, does a good job though...Malavika (of “Anni” fame) has an important role as Jamuna’s cousin in this film and does a fabulous job…
It is obvious that Jay Jay is inspired from “Serendipity “...If it was a five dollar bill in Serendipity, it is a 100 rupee note in Jay Jay…The concept is the same but “ Jay Jay “ mixes this with the usual Tamil film masala ..I wonder how these directors get away with their statements that their films are not at all inspired from other films. To a person who has seen Serendipity already, the similarity is obvious. In fact, all the scenes in this film build on this concept... Once we have the concept ready, it is not difficult to develop it into a screenplay… It is sad though that due credit has not been given to Serendipity by the director of this film.
Serendipity did not deviate from its theme. But then, “Jay Jay” has so many supporting characters and songs that it is easy for the audience to forget what the theme is …Instead of having separate comedy tracks , it would have been better if humor had been ingrained in the story itself.. The theme itself is implausible, so there is no question of trying to find logic in a film like this...While Serendipity turned out to be more like a fairy tale and a good romantic comedy (I wouldn’t say that it was a great film though), “Jay Jay “turns out to be a typical Tamil film with 3 fights, 5 songs and a horrible climax .Actually, there is not much you can do with a story like this ..Also, the screenplay should have been better for a film like this which hangs on a single concept. There are some good songs in this film and due credit has to be given to the music composer Bharadhwaj and lyricist Vairamuthu .
Watch this movie if you are a fan of Madhavan ..Otherwise I would recommend you to watch “Serendipity “instead...