Vaayai Moodi Pesavum

Very few movies make you re-think the way you approach life. Very few movies have directors who understand their movies’ characters in depth and craft them. Very few movies make you stay till the last frame of the end credits. Very few movies bring tears to your eyes in multiple scenes. Vaayai moodi pesavum was one of those few movies.

This movie has so many running gags all over that the story just can’t be compressed to a single line or a paragraph. Although the core is a mysterious disease taking over a small town all of a sudden and the cure for it, I was glad they didn’t concentrate much on ‘how’s and gave more detailing to the characters being affected by this disease. Had there been a couple of scenes explaining about the disease and how the cure was found with all the medical mumbo-jumbos I would’ve walked out even before the movie ended.

It was so refreshing to see all the forgotten faces back on screen. Especially madhubala (Watch out nadhiya, you’ve got some serious competition here). Sharing the screen with such veterans, the fresh faces have no other go but to act well to hold their place.

Slapstick comedy was very well handled by Balaji Mohan. Normally I would be irritated by the so called ‘alcohol’ humour but surprisingly robo shankar made me laugh my ass out in a couple of scenes. Completely non-cliched comedy tracks making fun of things that are actually worth making fun of and enjoyed by everyone.

I was so glad that I chose to watch this movie alone else I would have to listen to all the nonsensical rants about how comical they find the emotional scenes and how stereotypical the heroine is to breakup with her fiance and romance the hero. Everything the characters do in the movie was so justified that even the unnecessary first song sequence in which the charming hero happily walks through the hills seemed fitting.

I’ve been following Balaji Mohan from his short film days and have always been amazed by how he writes his characters. Everyone is so mature and so in character. Every action they did seemed like something that the character actually will do. Take Nazriya’s character for instance. She’s kind of an introvert. She gets irritated when people try to make small talk with her. Suddenly something happens in her town and everyone around her aren’t allowed to talk with anyone. Everyone seem so sad and frustrated but she is jumping out of joy. I know I didn’t describe it as expressive as the director but when you watch the movie, you’ll know what I mean.

The first 20 minutes in the second half of the movie where no one is allowed to talk is when we actually see the magic of sean roldan. He has spoken on behalf of every character in the movie. Nothing seemed unsaid. Everything was so expressive.

It was the small running gags that take the movie forward. There was this simpsons-esque newsreel gag spoofing the news channels (excellently done if you ask me) where the news-roll at the bottom of the screen has all this hilarious texts such as “This is the director of the movie. It is said that the director forcefully took this role by himself not letting anyone else to do” and “Come on we know nobody is reading this”. Even though knowing that this will go un-noticed by many, hats off to whoever thought of this for giving such detailing.

I wouldn’t mind a predictable happy ending in a movie if the journey was this beautiful. I wasn’t irritated by the usually irritating nazriya. I wasn’t frustrated by the ever-charming hero with the heart painted with white paint who doesn’t even have a stroke of grey shade. I was jealous of the writer for having so much clarity in life and the ability to make such a beautiful movie.

[rating:0.5]

Vaayai moodi pesavum – A movie that’ll make you shut up.