Nerkonda Paarvai

In Pink when Deepak Sehgal shows Rajveer Singh a photo of Rajveer’s sister Rajveer threatens Sehgal in a lower voice saying you don’t know who you are messing with. The response of Sehgal played by Amitab Bachchan was silence. But when it comes to Nerkonda Paarvai, Bharath Subramaniam played by Ajith has a verbal mass pleasing response in a lower voice. The pretentious buildup given to Ajith’s character, in the beginning, gets a link there. Yes! Nerkonda Paarvai is a glorified masala pampered version of Pink. But H Vinoth has managed to do that without disappointing someone who wishes to see the politics of the original getting recreated without any focus-issues.

Meera Krishnan, Famitha Banu, and Andrea Tariang are 3 independent working women in the city of Chennai. They are living in one apartment. One night after Meera’s dance performance they are offered dinner by a gang of three boys out of which one was Meera’s friend. But what happened post-dinner wasn’t a pleasant thing for the girls to remember. And their decision to react against the torture ruins their life. Nerkonda Paarvai shows us the fight of these 3 girls against the powerful judgmental men with the help of a lawyer.

If you admire the minimalism and compactness of Pink, then you shouldn’t try to watch Nerkonda Paarvai. But if you were excited to know how a director like H Vinoth would create a larger than life version of that same script, then you should try to watch this movie. Unlike Pink, Nerkonda Paarvai is elaborate. The hero has a grand back story. His psychological condition is really bad due to the demise of his wife. Vinoth seems to be very aware of the fact that people may feel the action one sees is unnecessary for the main narrative. But he uses it to give a reason for why the Tamil movie logic of why can’t Ajith just kill them all like a Shiva movie shouldn’t be applied here. The first half has an action set piece which made me wonder whether I am in for a Pink remake or a John Wick remake. But the second half the movie is really close to Pink and when the moment Adhwik starts to lose his cool, I knew why this movie was indeed a necessary remake.

From Ajith’s point of view, I feel this movie is somewhat beyond the attempt to be a hero. His massive fan following will be getting to know the statement made by a niche movie like Pink. And Vinoth has made tweaks to the character that offers him a space to perform along with the job of widening the reach of the movie. Nerkonda Paarvai can’t be looked at as a movie where Ajith played an extended cameo. Shraddha Srinath as Meera was terrific in portraying the helplessness of her character. Abhirami Venkatachalam was also superb as Famitha. Even though it was a bit eccentric, lawyer Sathyamoorthi played by Rangaraj Pandey was really convincing as most of us would be itching to give him a slap. Vidya Balan’s charm really works in favor of the film as she and Ajith looked lovely together on screen.

What was good about H Vinoth’s approach, in my opinion, was that he made us believe that a scene that got created purely for the fans of Ajith is necessary or it is part of the whole picture. The mental stress of the character thus becomes an excuse. There are no villains to the back story of Bharath Subramaniam. He is a man fighting with himself. Vinoth also shows us how he attains mental stability through this process of fighting for the girls. The politics of the movie is indeed a hard-hitting one and as I said earlier they have not diluted it because of the Thala factor. Post pink, a lot of things have happened related to women’s rights and equality. Yet when I was watching this film there was a section of the audience who were laughing at the helplessness of those girls. The cinematography was really effective. I really loved the fast-paced edits. The action sequence looked splendid. The background score was also perfectly blended.

In Yathrakkarude Shradhakk, Jayaram’s Ram talks about how the pitch changes when things reach Tamilnadu. That pitch change is definitely there in H Vinoth’s Nerkonda Paarvai. But the movie doesn’t deviate from its focus and you will walk out of the theater thinking about the judgmental behavior of the society.

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