Theivathirumagal

It doesn't matter how many movies you see, when there is a trailer that catches your attention you get your hopes up!!! This was one such movie which raised our expectations but failed to live upto it.

Every story has a underlying story line. What the trailer promised was a man who has a physic of a full grown man but has a mind of a 5 year old. It made the audience look forward to a playful story. But the director thought otherwise. He portraid an emotional bond between a father and his daughter. For this the man dint have to be mentally underdeveloped!!

This was not an original movie. I believe swati mudyam (chippukul muthu) was the original that gave an idea for this movie. However, there was no justice done to it's origin.

Psychologically, a mentally underdeveloped person such as the hero would not be able to take care of himself, let alone father a child. But the hero in this movie is well organized, follows a routine and is very perfect. Be it cutting the chocolates into perfect squares or taking the same particular road to work, boiling the milk for the baby the way he was taught.. etc doesnt really put his character upto the challenge it was intended to. This kind of meticulous behavior is more of an OCD(obsessive compulsive disorder) than mentally under developed. This in itself beats the character on which the story was built.

The first scene in the movies raises a question. How on earth was this hero able to have a baby in the first place. Just to avoid such discrepancies, the director made it a point to include some inappropriate jokes like "it is sufficient for one person to know the details(about sex)" twice in the movie. Such inappropriate jokes were uncalled for even if there was a need to show enmity between characters. This totally undermines the sanctity of innocence in the movie.

Then comes the court scenes which was built completely against the belief the movie was built on. The lawyer (heroine) tries hard in all possible ways to defend her client from being proven mentally unstable and in adequate to care for a girl child.. which was actually the truth. This shows that the director himself was in conflict or that he is not sure how else to proceed with the story.

A simple hug from the hero sends the heroine into dream state?? Really?.. Again this was just an excuse to let the heroine do the rain dance and had no relevance to the story!!! The movie puts unwanted weight on the emotions of the mentally underdeveloped person.. Who by the way is actually suffering from OCD which explains why he doesn't get distracted by anything like a 5 year old boy does, but is obsessed about everything including getting his child back. But what it fails to shows is the emotions of every other normal persons built around the kid and her father.

For instance, the gal's chitti who consistently sees the pain in the child or ignores it to her best. The way the kid's grandfather behaves, or the way the prosecutor behaves when he locks the hero up. This is all deliberate efforts of the director to impose the heroes character as superior to others and to create a sense of sympathy amongst the audience. There were other editing mistakes like how the lawyers traced his whereabouts to avalanchi or how the guy from Ooty changed his mind about his testimony in the court etc.,.

Having said all that, the ending was quite dissapointing as well. It shows that everybody around him were quite heartless to let him leave without his kid and that he himself doesn't keep his promise to his kid that he would never leave..

There were several similar movies both in the hollywood & in tamil industries that did a better job than this one.. to list a few, Rainman in hollywood.. padikatha methai (although not mentally challenging character.. but showed the innocence even better).. chinna thambi.. chippikul muthu.. etc...

The movie at best is a drama of conflicts. However, we cannot pass it without a word of appreciation to actor vikram & the kid who played his daughter. They have done the best with what they were given.

Other than that, there are a lot of "could have been different"s in the movie. On the whole, the movie did not do justice to the characters, actors or the story itself.