On paper, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s maiden production venture, LGM (Let’s Get Married), looks like that perfect light-hearted rom-com dealing with a very relatable relationship issue. But instead of constructing an organic story around it, director Ramesh Thamilmani adds ridiculous amounts of irrelevant humor tracks to test your patience. Almost 50% of the movie’s runtime can be reduced if you chop out all the insignificant bits.
The movie opens with the scene where Gautham proposes to Meera after they decide to give it a try for two years. But when it came to fixing their marriage, Meera sort of became unsure about the wedding as she feared she might not be compatible with Gautham’s mother, Leela. Meera proposes the idea of a joint family trip with both the families of Gautham and Meera so that the families can get to know better. We see how that plan goes and the events that happen during that in Let’s Get Married, aka LGM.
A young girl’s concerns about her equation with her future husband’s family is a significant topic that must be addressed. But Ramesh Thamilmani seems to have nothing with him beyond that one-liner idea. He uses the classic solution of getting to know each other over the course of a journey. But there also, the guy is clueless about how to introduce conflicts and how to make them opportunities for the two individuals to get to know one another. Every event in that journey is a ridiculous comedy side-track that will make you facepalm. And the biggest stupidity is how the director believes the pathetic communication skills of the hero and the way he blames the girlfriend and his mother for all the troubles are something the audience will buy.
The character’s writing itself is terrible, and Harish Kalyan trying to make the audience empathize with the manchild Gautham is even more insufferable. Ivana, as Meera, tries to make the character relatable in certain scenes where the tempo is sane. But again, Ramesh Thamilmani is adamant about creating comedy by making his characters idiots rather than writing something that is genuinely funny. Nadia Moidu, as Gautham’s mother, also tries her best to make the poorly written character look real on screen. Yogi Babu is pretty much that side-track comedian, a ritual that Tamil cinema had forgotten. RJ Vijay plays the useless role of the hero’s friend. Vinodini Vaidhyanathan, VTV Ganesh, etc., are attached to the project without any purpose.
The writing of Let’s Get Married (LGM) is horrible, to say the least. When Meera and Leela explore Goa, we see that a foreigner is stalking them. And the next thing you see is the foreigner going on his knees and proposes Leela. In Ramesh Thamilmani’s world, even foreign people follow the stalking is true love logic you often see in mainstream Tamil cinema. Every time you see Yogi Babu in the frame, it feels like the director decided to write stuff on the spot to create comedy. The frequently peeing grandfather, the white Godman, and the whole tiger episode felt like a real test of patience. The plot points are so banal that I am pretty sure the director hasn’t bothered asking any of his female friends for feedback about what he has written.
The main character of the movie, Gautham, is this dumb individual who assumes and complicates things without really asking the people involved in it. And the whole film LGM felt like a script that Gautham would have written if he aspired to become a filmmaker. The torture level of movies like LGM is so high that theaters should offer complimentary coffee to the audience to reduce the headache.
The torture level of movies like LGM is so high that theaters should offer complimentary coffee to the audience to reduce the headache.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
