36 Vayadhinile - 'Penn' to the power of 'Jo'!

36 Vayadhinile - Suriya's JyothiMahal!

Cast - Jyothika-Vasanthi, Rahman - Tamil Selvan, Abhirami, Sanjay Bharathi, Prem, Siddhartha Basu, Nassar, Delhi Ganesh, & M.S.Bhasker among others

& Crew - Director - Roshan Andrrews, D.O.P- R.Diwakaran, Music- Santhosh Narayanan, Editor - Mahesh Narayanan, Screenplay - Viji

Producer - Suriya

Forethought - I liked what the director wanted to say;Not so much what he finally said!

Sum & Substance of women power; First of all kudos to director Roshan Andrews for taking up the cause of the husband and family submissive Indian women.....but you feel let down as the director continuously relies on strong dialogues rather than visuals to highlight the cause of the women and the premise. In fact the opening song Rajaathi... is probably the only 4 minutes where the director decides to let the deprived women to share screen space with Jyothika! That's fine with me but once again Jyothika comes out looking like a Naidu Hall Sari model in terms of looks, the saris she wears etc which is more evident when she shares screen space with other women of equal backgrounds like Devadarshini etc. Secondly she is not de glammed like Kangana was shown in Queen. Look! don't get me wrong; I am not implying that she should like a bedraggled, poverty stricken woman but definitely more attention should have been paid to her make up and costumes in the first half of the film where she is portrayed as a submissive woman the costumes and makeup are better suited for a transformed Jyothika in the second half. Let's look at the premise; during the first half the director characterizes Jo as a subdued and submissive woman after she gets married to Rahman; Why so? A firebrand and an emancipated woman Jo (flashback of college days) literally becomes a bonded labourer to her husband; devotes her full time to her aging in laws and bringing up her only daughter and goes about mechanically doing a mundane job as clerk in the revenue department. Fine! We have all seen this happen but should the director not dwell into the psyche of this problem by narrating a few issues from her past? This would make us empathise with her and travel with the character throughout the film. All the issues shown looked so trivial and superfluous that makes you want to yawn at times. Even the accident scene;Rahman trying to foist a false case on Jo was not enough to convince me of jo's submissive attitude. (A scene depicting marital rape or even an alcoholic husband would have really helped and taken Jo's character to new heights) Jo's arguments with her only daughter was also rather trivial and lacked total credibility ( Puberty, infatuation, Mensural and other more delicate mom- daughter issues would have been wholly effective). Then comes the going to Ireland issue; the very first consulate interview with Jo looked silly and lacked credibility. In fact Jo starts speaking English with a strong Tamil accent and as the films progresses her English is almost faultless. The in laws in the film purely make up for the comedy quotient else it serves very little purpose to the premise. The meeting with the president of India all because of her daughter posing a question once again lacked maturity. It appeared like Jyothika was recipient of a golden ticket from inside a chocolate wrapper. Here again the whole facade of heightened security, the urbane look president etc looked so un-Indian. Jyothika passing out before the president and becoming the butt of ridicule with all her friends and foe is more to make usage of facebook, twitter taboo in actual fact the incident must have evoked sympathy for Jyothika and should have enhanced her status in society! The director later tries to set right this anomaly but fails.The sudden transformation of Jyothika into an entrepreneur owing to an inspired motivational lecture by the arrival of her long lost classmate and friend  simply lacks conviction. 

In the second half bringing in the concept of green house terrace cultivation as a business model looked more like a populistic government scheme. I say this because the whole process of devising and implementing this scheme is made so easy for Jyothika by the director that it appears to be child's play. This is where Rajini the crusader in an old Hindi serial scored because the issues she decides to crusade were far more real and achievable. 

Finally the director attempts to set right all the wrongs in Jyothika's life and ends up providing the biggest wrong in the film the insipid and dull climax! An emancipated and strong Jyothika of the second half should have forced her husband Rahman to accept her as an equal half if not a better half!

Performances: Though Jyothika's performance cannot be faulted though at times her demure and body language does mirror on Sridevi's role in English Vinglish. Secondly Rahman looked more like a distant cousin rather than her husband! Why? Let me give u an example in the scene when Rahman returns from Ireland; Jyothika should have turned and probably attempted to hug her husband or show some sort of blatant happiness due to his sudden and long absence and unexpected return. Secondly the bond between mother and daughter bordered on step mother - daughter relationship. Rahman looked more like a dull, selfish and guarded villain always told to maintain a 3 ft distance between himself and Jyothika. The daughter looked more like she was relating to her close friends mother rather than her own. The In laws comedy quotient provides some comic relief though looked irrelevant most of the times. Why Jyothika becomes dull and again gets galvanized all of a sudden not clear. Why she opts to take her mother in law instead of the daughter when she meets up with the president a mystery; Why she does not have the wholesale vendor arrested when he deliberately poisons and adulterates the vegetables; the director fails to address this and many more issues; The screenplay and cosmetic incidents that brings down the quality of this film quite a bit! 

P.S What the visuals fail to do the dialogues does!

Bottomline: More an ode to the wife by a doting husband; rather than an ode to Indian women perennially facing a midlife post marital crisis!

Finally a Quote: "I measure the progress of a society by a director's portrayal of women in a film!" hC

My Rating - 2.5/5

Until Next Time,

Director Haricharan

16/5/2015