Mr. Gautham Menon seems to be still in the hangover of his last outing with Chimbu. Neethaane En Ponvasantham is a flawed attempt to showcase the ego clash and complexes among human minds that are in a relationship. It’s a movie that depicts a romance that is neither filmy nor practical. Too much traversal through the individual’s life and the back and forth nature of the relationship makes this Gautham Menon movie a tiring watch.
The plot of the movie revolves around the two protagonists Varun and Nithya. It’s a journey through four stages of their life where they kind of begins and terminates the same relationship status. The various issues faced by them in various stages is actually Gautham has tried to showcase through the movie.
The plot is kind of relevant as it displays the modern day romance that kind of breaks up over simple egos. But the problem is in the treatment of the script. The script fails to make the audience feel the chemistry or romance that exists between the two protagonists and because of that the entire drama questions the sensibility of our mind. The typical Gautham Menon flavors are there. The male lead is still an engineer; romance is still happening in Coffee shops and open terraces, the protagonists can’t hide their ego etc. While Jessi and Karthik had an awesome chemistry, Varun and Nithya lacks that a lot.
Even though the movie has a lot of Gautham Menon clichés; he has tried for some changes from his usual pattern. But sadly only a few of them really works for the movie. The characterization of Santhanam was a good input as that character always made fun of the filmy romance. The cinematography is convincing. The biggest disappointment was in the sound track section. Only 2 of the tracks really works for the film and the rest of the tracks are like bizarrely embedded BGM. The BGM at occasions is quite outdated and kills the mood of the movie. The script is engaging in the beginning of the first half. It loses its tempo towards the half way point and never really picks up. The elaborate climax was also disturbing.
Performance wise, Jeeva was really impressive in his Varun avatar. Samantha was good in portraying the bubbly side of Nithya, but in the pivotal emotional scenes she totally looses the grip. Santhanam gives the audience a lot to laugh with his cool avatar rather than his usual noisy appearance.
Neethaane En Ponvasantham is a movie that at the end gets limited for a very minority to enjoy. It can be called as a nice attempt considering the fact that it throws light on the brittle modern day relationships. But as a film it has a lot of limitations and fails to make an emotional impact. I am giving 2.5/5 for this romantic comedy from Gautham Vasudev Menon. It’s a treatment error.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
