Kadal review

Life is comprised of Highs and Lows, great experiences and experiences that tear you down to your core.  Yet, nothing should take you away from your path of righteousness.  There are unbelievable experiences in your life – you meet someone for the first time who believes in you and wants you to succeed, the first time you learn your job like riding a boat on the sea and catching fishes, the first time you fall in love and feel that your life has meaning, the first time someone accepts you unconditionally despite your flaws – all these experiences make your life worth it. That’s how I feel about Kadal. The highs of the movie justify the lows.

I am a Mani Rathnam fan – not just a regular fan - an ardent fan who watches each of his movies at least 3 or 4 times, despite it being hit or not. I memorize the dialogues in his movies and remember every frame. I know it’s crazy, I am not related to movies at all. But there is something about his movies which changes my perception about things. So before even going to the movie I told my husband I will like it. And for the first time when the movie ended I felt Mani could have done better. Somehow I felt he has tried to change his style so that he could get accepted.

In some scenes he shines, there is brilliance, passion, beauty which no other movie creator in Tamil could even try to emulate. It is sheer love of the story , of his characters and indeed he loves Thomas from the moment he shows him lying on top of his dead mother.  The progression of the character from a helpless child to a revengeful teenager is indeed amazing.  The scenes made me think about so many things – the way a prostitute is treated in a society, how anything related to such a woman is looked upon, how sometimes society makes a child a criminal. Yet, I couldn’t help but fall in love with Thomas as he cries for his mother,  and as he curiously tries to understand father Sam, as he learns for the first time to ride a boat and catch fish.

Gautham Karthik is introduced with Elay keechan. The movie still seemed good to me.  He sees Beatrice, is attracted to her, has a fight with his father who does not own him. Still good. The movie turns in another direction in the second half , yet it is still not so bad as some reviews turn out to be.  The good still makes the bad parts of the movie worth it.

These are the things I particulary enjoyed about the movie

1)      The scenes of Thomas till he becomes Gautham

2)      The scene where he learns to ride a boat. I saw so much excitement and joy in the boy’s eyes and I couldn’t help but admire the sea

3)      I did like the romance sequences with Bea

4)      I like the scene where they both deliver a baby

5)      I loved loved loved Moongil Thottam and the scene before it. It seems so beautiful to wipe away someone’s sins so easily.

I don’t even want to talk about the things I didn’t like. For brilliance to shine through, we need to digest a few boring things. Otherwise we would just be filled with mediocre movies.

Mani Rathnam and Rahman – you thought no one noticed the BGM is same as Raavan? Well, I did…..