Review: Enjoy

Other than cheap thrills that are lecherous in nature, this film has little else to offer.

Enjoy review

Film: Enjoy
Director: Perumal Kasi
Cast: G V Aparna, Charumisa, Niranjana, Madhan Kumar, Dancer Vignesh and Harish Kumar
Music: K M Rayan
Cinematography: K N Akbar
Editor: Manikumaran
Rating: 1.5 stars

Director Perumal Kasi’s ‘Enjoy’ is a film that tries to present itself as a new age romantic entertainer but sadly ends up coming across only as a smutty drama that is neither entertaining nor romantic.

The film revolves around three young women (played by G V Aparna, Charumisa and Niranjana) and three young men (played by Madhan Kumar, Dancer Vignesh and Harish Kumar).

While the characters Aparna and Charumisa play hail from lower middle class families that are based in the rural parts of the state, Niranjana plays a character that hails from a middle-class family in Bangalore.

Having scored high marks in their board exams, the girls, through scholarships and funds donated by philanthropists, come to Chennai to continue their higher education in a reputed college here.

However, they are ill-treated by other well-to-do girls in the college who have bought their way into the institution. The three young girls are often mocked because of their poverty and made fun of by the other girls.

Needless to say, this makes the young girls dejected and desperate. There is just one senior girl, a roommate, who empathises with them and offers them support — both verbally and financially.

It does not take long for the first year girls to discover that the senior who is offering them support herself hails from a lower middle-class family. The girls are surprised as to how she can manage to afford all the luxuries that only the other rich girls can and ask her about it.

She lets them in on the secret and tells them that she “attends weekend parties” for which she is paid handsome amounts. In other words, she discloses that she is into prostitution and justifies the act in the name of women empowerment.

Two of the young girls are impressed by her reply and decide to take up this ‘part-time profession’ to also ‘raise’ their financial standards to that of the other girls. They convince the third girl into accompanying them.

Soon, they urge the senior girl to help them find work. She obliges and sends them to a weekend party in Kodaikanal while she herself heads to another party in Chennai.

Meanwhile, simultaneously, in another part of the city, three boys who are roommates are desperate for “enjoyment” or in other words lusting for sex. While one is a civil services aspirant, one is an IT professional and a third one is a well to do individual, who has been a drug addict.

To “enjoy”, all three boys head to Kodaikanal. What happens there is what the film is all about.

The film is full of crass, double meaning dialogues that are bound to bring a smirk to your faces.

Although the film finally has a scene in which a counsellor is shown telling the girls that indulging in prostitution is wrong and that girls must only focus on their studies instead of letting such dangerous desires draw them to their doom, it does not sound convincing and seems to have been placed there just for the sake of being seen as being politically correct.

What is given significance in the film and as a result comes across as being emphatic and powerful is the reason the senior girl gives for getting into prostitution.

Like all other feminist films, she comfortably shifts the blame on to society, calling it a patriarchal society which expects a woman to subdue all her desires and present herself before her husband to follow his orders in order for her to be given the title ‘Chaste’. She says that if these are the conditions that she must fulfill to get such a title, she does not want it and that rather she will do what she wants with her body according to her choice.

The scene has been picturised in such a way that it is bound to drive home the wrong message in an emphatic way.

That is not all. The film shows boys as being desperate for sex, with nothing else on their minds. Ironically, this film stoops to a new low, showing one of the boys as being a civil services aspirant.

If there is one thing that is remarkable about the film, it is the music. The lyrics might come across as being crass but the music for the songs is remarkably good. The background score too is apt.

Other than cheap thrills that are lecherous in nature, this film has little else to offer.