Paarijaatham movie review- Refreshing & enjoyable

Of late, there have been so many times when I thought that the giants of yesteryears like Bharathiraja, KB have lost it. Period. Bcos so many of their films of late have been insipid, to put it very mildly. Bharathiraja's outputs have been pretty mediocre ever after Kizhakku Seemaiyile happened. Same with KB, with nothing much to rave about Duet and Paarthaale Paravasam. And this list has only been growing with directors like Fazil who while dishing out that farce called Oru Naal Oru Kanavu, joining the list. I used to wonder if these renowned directors of yesteryears will ever be able to regain their lost glory.

Having said all this, it was only natural for me to be apprehensive while beginning to watch Paarijaatham, just anxious as to whether Bhagyaraj too has joined that list. The way the movie starts, you begin to wonder if your worst fears are coming true. But as it progresses, Bhagyaraj eases our anxiety and goes a long way in proving to us that he still retains his old magic and more importantly that magic can captivate the audience of this generation too. And the way he sets out accomplishing this is the best thing I liked about the movie – tightly knit screenplay & highly enjoyable sequences.

There is a reason why Bhagyaraj was considered to be one of the best screenplay writers in the country, during his hey days. And he proves in this movie how he reached that stature. I was simply blown away by the way each and every loose end of the movie was taken care of. Each time you see a loose end here or an unwanted character there, you begin wondering what is Bhagyaraj up to and he assuages your doubts pretty soon, by easily knitting up a coherent reason for the same. The story as such was no great shakes and even though we can guess what will be the logical conclusion to the movie right at the interval, instead of getting bored with the same, we get ready for the second half to unfold, bcos it is the second half where we expect Bhagyaraj to come in and solve the knot in his own interesting way. The concept of the story inside a story was done neatly. Though at times I felt that the inside story was stretching just a bit too much, the happenings later in the movie justified Bhagyaraj's decision to prolong the inside story that long.

As long as you see Sharanya Bhagyaraj as Bhagyaraj's daughter, you wont feel like her criticizing her (bcos of the soft corner for Bhagyaraj). She looks cute and she reminds us of her mother too much. But if you are able to see her beyond that protective veil, then I am sure you can say that it is a performance with tremendous scope for improvement. The moment she utters her first dialogue, I was like Oh my God!! I have to put up with this for 2.5 hours. She had this certain inhibition, be it in dialogue delivery or in emoting in crucial scenes. But after a while, you kind of get used to her expressionless face along with her other shortcomings and then you overlook them & beging enjoying the movie instead. Bhagyaraj could have saved a lot of blushes for her if he had shown long shots of her in some scenes where she has faltered badly. But there are no such complaints for Prithviraj, who turns in a fine performance. He proves that he can play the role of hero with the same ease, as that he played the role of villain with. All others, including Prakashraj & Bhagyaraj himself, chip in with some decent performances.

The major disappointment of the movie IMO were the songs. And I cant believe someone who is doing his debut movie could churn in such mediocre tunes. Bhagyaraj could have instead used some tunes from the Blogswara numbers. Couple of the Blogswara songs are just damn good and they are on repeat mode in my current playlist.

Other thing I disliked about the movie was that it had the flavor of a Vikraman movie in the first 20 or 30 mins, when Seetha is getting impressed with Sharanya. For example, the following are couple of scenarios that you would see in a typical Vikraman movie - A and B will be talking to each other about C and C would be shown standing in some hidden corner and listening as to what A & B are talking him/her. The other scenario is this: C is impressed with A and you will see characters D, E, F, etc singing praises of character A to somebody else and like you expect, C will be hiding (in a different corner this time around) listening to these praises. These are just some sample scenes that you will find in all Vikraman movies and whenever I see them in any other movie, I get irritated. That happened in this movie too but thankfully Bhagyaraj stopped that within the first few mins.

The very first scene in the movie has Bhagyaraj saying that we are not in for a roller coaster ride but we in for a boat ride in clear & calm waters. He delivers just that in his own inimitable style and succeeds in what he set out to. A very good family entertainer devoid of double meaning jokes & people tied to strings flying around (adhaanga fight scenes!!) No wonder that the king of screenplay finds himself in familiar territory - box office success.