Review: Podhuvaaga En Manasu Thangam

Director: Thalapathy Prabhu; Cast: Udhayanidhi Stalin, Nivetha Pethuraj, Parthepan, Soori and others

Film : Podhuvaaga em manasu thangam

Director: Thalapathy Prabhu

Cast: Udhayanidhi Stalin, Nivetha Pethuraj, Soori, Parthepan and others

Music: D Imman

Cinematography: Balasubramaniam

Debutant Thalapathy Prabhu’s film Podhuvaaga Em Manasu Thangam is a simple rom-com that tells the tale of a conflict between an altruist who cares for his villagers and an attention-seeker, who will go to any lengths for the sake of popularity and publicity.

The problem with the film is that the premise on which the story is built is not convincing enough and therefore any attempt made to make it appeal to audiences only comes across as being artificial and absolutely preposterous.

To cut a long story short, Ganesh (Udhay) is the son of a school teacher who has a great reputation among the members of his village. Ganesh’s village is home to a popular deity to which prayers are offered by those in the neighbouring villages as well.

Parthepan, a publicity-seeking wealthy man in a neighbouring village, nurses a grudge against Ganesh’s village. The reason for the grudge, we are told through a flashback, is that many years ago, Parthepan’s daughter Leela, a child then, was to have her ear-piercing ceremony at this temple.

However, on the day of the ceremony, an inauspicious development in Ganesh’s village forces the villagers to stop Leela’s ear-piercing ceremony half-way through.  Angered by the stalling of his daughter’s ear-piercing ceremony, Parthepan is looking to extract revenge on Ganesh’s villagers and has been working on it for the last several years.

Needless to say, Parthepan’s idea of revenge is a little funny.

He intends to get all the villagers of the village that houses the temple to migrate to other places and eventually, make the village a deserted one. As a result, he hopes to have the temple, where his daughter’s ear-piercing ceremony was stalled, shifted to his village.

Years go by and Parthepan is still working on making families leave the village that houses the temple of the diety. Ganesh, a youngster now, is looking to bring back the villagers to his village.

It is at this point in time that Ganesh, as expected, falls in love with Leela. What happens next is what the story is all about.

The film has good performances from most of its star cast but it has just one brilliant performance and that comes from Parthepan.

While Udhayanidhi, Nivetha Pethuraj of Oru Naal Koothu fame and Soori play their parts reasonably well, it is Parthepan, who, with his awesome punch-lines and measured performance, who really stands out. Even Soori, with his punch lines, is no match for Parthepan’s one line retorts which are, in some cases, deadly.

D Imman’s music is refreshing and two of the numbers catch your attention easily. In fact, Imman’s music and Balasubramaniem’s camera work are easily among the film’s biggest strengths.

Some of Soori’s jokes really work but a vast majority don’t. To be fair to the comedian, the story falls flat and there’s not much a comedian can do to salvage a film when a story loses its credibility in the eyes of the viewer. In other words, the film comes across as a loosely packed sequence of events that have been forcefully fitted into one unit.

Director Thalapathy Prabhu has potential but he will have to learn to nurture his strengths and cut down on his weaknesses if he wishes to make a name for himself in this industry.

Podhuvaaga Em Manasu Thangam most definitely isn’t gold!