Review: Mercury

Review: Mercury
Director: Karthik Subbaraj
Cinematographer: Thirunavukkarasu
Music: Santhosh Narayanan
Cast: Prabhu Deva, Indhuja, Sananth, Anish, Shashank and Deepak

Karthik Subbaraj’s Mercury is one of a kind. The film is a silent one, which is to say it does not have any dialogues.

But don’t let that, for a moment, make you think that this is going to be a dull, annoying, boring film. Because it is exactly the opposite of all of that. The intense supernatural thriller, might not have dialogues, but it sure does leave a profound impact on you, thanks to the manner in which it has been made.

A thorough entertainer, the film has some brilliant performances, exceptional music and some scintillating visuals apart from a good story that is told in a gripping manner.

Five hearing and speech impaired friends, four guys and a girl to be precise, are out at a beautiful hill station for an alumni meet. That night, after the meet, the friends begin celebrating their get together. The occasion also happens to be the birthday of the girl, with whom one of the boys is madly in love with. After the birthday celebrations die down, the guy in love silently proposes to the girl and she accepts. Thrilled at his love being reciprocated, the guy suggests to the girl that they take a drive through the beautiful hills to enjoy the night. Despite their efforts to silently slip away, the others get to know of their plan and join in.

The drive begins and the five of them crack jokes and look to have a good time. As they play pranks on one another, a prank played by the boy on his girfriend, who is at the wheel, results in an accident killing an individual (Prabhu Deva). What happens next forms the rest of the story.

The film is engaging right from the word go and that is primarily because of the manner in which the story is told and the way the actors manage to communicate the story without so much as having to utter a word. Every single actor is brilliant and delivers what is expected of him or her. The four boys, Anish (whose character values an ipod despite not being able to hear), Sananth (who plays the boyfriend), Shashank and Deepak (who play the two other friends), each come up with an impressive performance. Their performances are so good that it is hard to believe that these are people who are relatively new in the film industry.

Prabhu Deva, who plays the speech and vision impaired victim, is mindblowing. His performance as a speech and visually impaired person in this film is one of his best performances ever.

However, it is Indhuja, as the girlfriend, who steals the limelight. She is spot on in her expressions and looks absolutely at ease playing the difficult character. In one particular scene, all five friends begin to fear for their lives. The fear is evident in all the actors’ faces but on Indhuja’s face, apart from the tension, there is a mild trembling that one can detect. The performances are so realistic that they bring credibility to the story that is being narrated and that is definitely a big plus for the team.

All six artistes, Prabhu Deva included, must be congratulated for being so proficient in the sign language that the specially-abled use for communication. Their movements might be swift but they are clear enough for one to understand what it is that is happening on screen. A special word of appreciation for Indhuja in this regard as sources from the sets say that while all the others underwent training sessions in sign language for a month and a half, Indhuja, who was brought in as a last minute replacement, had no such training. All that she had was a brief training session of four hours in sign language. Despite this lack of training, she has delivered the best performance among the lot.

Director Karthik Subbaraj has invariably been able to put across his thoughts in a neat fashion in his films and this film too is no exception. The director, craftily, tells not one, but two wonderful love stories in a film that has no songs but whose background score is just way too good. Even as Karthik gives the viewers a good commercial story to enjoy, he manages to subtly drive home the point that people in a locality suffer when dangerous minerals and chemicals are mined or produced by greedy corporates looking to fatten their purses. The film’s ending in particular, is something very relevant to what is happening in Tamil Nadu, which is up in arms against firms like Sterlite Copper company.

It will be grave injustice if one does not talk about Thirunavukkarasu’s visuals in the film. They are simply awesome and leave you craving for more. The lighting in particular is spot on in most places and out of the world in a few specific sequences. The tone and colour for each scene captures the mood of the scene perfectly and is a treat to watch. The angles at which certain shots have been captured make one want to watch them over and over again.

On the whole, Mercury is a wonderful entertainer with a meaningful message. More importantly, one does not need to know any language to understand and enjoy it.