Movie Review of Thiruchitrambalam directed by Mithran R. Jawahar

A food delivery boy finds his true love. Yes, this is the story line of the movie ‘Thiruchitrambalam’ directed by Mithran R Jawahar. This is a cliched genre, we all know that. But what Mithran does differently here is to line up a stellar cast namely Dhanush, Nithya Menon, Prakash Raj and Bharathiraja who ensures that the audience doesn’t experience a dull moment in the movie.

Having seen Dhanush’s performance all these years, we know that acting as a guy-next-door is a piece of cake for him. Yet, the finesse that he has brought in to this character is so beautiful that it is highly relatable and I couldn’t even remember one scene where he overplayed his character. And kudos to Mithran as he has managed to stick to his script, despite the star cast, with no unwanted mass scenes or song shot in foreign locations.

Thiruchitrambalam or fondly known as ‘Pazham’ (Dhanush) is a shy lad whose job is to deliver food to customers and his day starts with quarrel with his father(Prakash Raj) and ends with drinks with his grandfather (Senior ‘Pazham’ played by Bharathiraja). Pazham has only close friend Shobana, which is played by Nithya Menon and she also happens to be her childhood friend, and they know and understand each other quite well.

The scenes where Pazham and Shobana fight and pull each other’s legs appear quite natural and lightens up the mood of the audience. There, of course, were few places where I didn’t find a reason to laugh but Nithya Menon was ROFL, which I felt was a bit overreaction. She stands by Dhanush and supports in his love expedition with Rashi Khanna and Priya Bhavani Shankar, whose roles were quite shallow leaving no impact on the audience.

The trio- Prakash Raj, Dhanush and Bharathiraja- literally stole the show as they portray the emotions of a family hit by an unforeseen but an avoidable accident. Especially, Bharathiraja’s subtle reactions and expressions were thoroughly enjoyable and his character is well written as a wise old man who navigates and helps his son and grandson navigate worst phase of their life, with scratches here and there but nothing life threatening. He manages to push Dhanush to introspect about what love and marriage means, which actually propels him to zero down on his soulmate. Curious to know whom he would have married of the 3 beautiful ladies?! Go and watch it in the theater!!! And he also plays it hard to make his son and grandson eventually patch up, helping them break the ice. This scene is one of the highlights of the movie, where all 3 of them does a brilliant job.

The background music and songs by Anirudh have also come out nicely.  The songs ‘Megam Karukadha’ and ‘Thaai Kelavi’ makes one mumble the lyrics as we leave the theater. On the whole, this is a good movie watchable with your family and it also carries important messages on true love, need for open communication in the family, and more importantly the need for attentive driving on the roads.