Hi. This is a review written by my friend, Narayan. Since he doenst know abt MS, I’m posting this here.
Hi all, this Saturday, I went to the movie ’Ullam Kaetkume’. I was a bit surprised why such a good and a reasonably hit movie like this was shut in the box for such a long time. If GV had been there, it would have become a good breather for him. As such there is no great story or hero/heroine in this film. Its a kind of collection of a few happenings in college life. Further, due to the presence of 5 main characters in the film, it becomes more of a director’s movie than a particular actor’s movie.
Imaan is a famous international cricketer who invites his college friends for his marriage. All these friends got together for the marriage, chatted together and recollected some fond (and not so fond) memories from their college life. Thats the entire film. The film revolves around five characters and amongst them 4 of them are in love entanglements. Imaan an aspiring cricketer loves Irene and she loves him too. Shaam, the rich guy amongst the lot though being a flirt is in love with Priya a shrewd brahmin girl. But he is being loved by Pooja - a chatterbox. What happens to this entangle forms the film.
Arya as Imaan was a newcomer when he did the role. For a newcomer, it was a neat job. Though he doesn’t seem to dance well, he did a good job in his expressions. Pooja as Irene did well to gain a reasonably good name for her. Just by changing her hairdo she got very well as an Anglo-Indian girl. The time when she came out of her house crying and her sudden change of expression when she saw her friends waiting outside was a good one from her. She tried to stop crying for that moment, but couldn’t control for long and then burst again. That was really a notable one.
Shaam comes as Shaam - the richest amongst the lot. His talk at the farewell day was a good touching one. He is the guy who got more time than others to appear on screen. I wouldn’t say its a turning point in his career but this role should help him to get a few more offers. Asin comes as the typical shrewd brahmin girl. She looks cute and suits the role very well.
But it was Laila as Pooja who stole the show amongst this lot. She really proved that she is a very good actress whose talent got wasted by poor offers. Almost for the entire film she comes as a mischevious joyful girl and finally at the end turns up as a very mature woman. Hers was the best role in the film. Amongst the other characters, there was one guy who comes with the name ’Parthasarathy’. I don’t really remember seeing him in any previous films but he bore the brunt of comedy in the film. Its a rare feature that comedy comes with the story instead of a seperate track. Yet another positive for the film is its music - shouldered by Harris Jayaraj. There were pair of wonderful melodies and some good foot tapping fast numbers.
All the more, it was a director’s film. For a cinematographer turned director, it was really good job (though there were a few scenes inspired by Autograph and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai). That for this film, he didn’t have a strong storyline to back him up and he trusted only on screenplay to support him. There weren’t much mistakes in the film too. The director constantly engages the viewer to the film as there are quite a lot of events in the film. He had to show 5 different attitudes towards love and still manages to go through the feelings of all the four friends(Asin wasn’t much emotional). He wouldn’t have had enough time to spend for that. Still he managed to do a splendid job.
Particularly he handled certain emotional scenes really well. The scene where Sham proposes to Asin was cool. She refused but still said that she doesn’t want to hurt him as he is her friend. Similarly when a cousin hugged Irene, the director handled the emotions of Imaan well. And furthermore he fully brought to the fore the acting skills of Laila. May be the climax was a bit long and the director could have worked better on the climax. Still it was a wonderful well handled movie. At a time when Anniyan and chandramukhi are creating havoc, this movie is almost running full that too with family crowd. Thats definitely a welcome sign for such good movies.
Regards, Narayan.