Venkatarangan Thirumalai

Hichki (2018) starring Rani Mukerji is a story of an aspiring teacher who gets hired as a temp, she has to overcome her health condition the Tourette syndrome and prove herself. Due to her Tourette syndrome, she makes involuntary twitches along with a tic sound, this makes people look at her irritatingly and laugh at. I presumed the whole movie would be about her health condition and her personal struggle. Instead, Director Siddharth P. Malhotra has made the story about the struggles of a set of students hailing from the nearby slum, and how they overcome their handicaps with the help of their class teacher Naina Mathur (Rani Mukerji) and succeed in their exam. Hichki places the focus rightfully on the teachers, like the dialogue “there are no bad students only bad teachers” – unfortunately, the film doesn’t provide with any practical solutions or an impetus to start a dialogue on this – Hichki just coasts along with pedestrian fixes, an opportunity wasted. Hichki – A good movie to watch with your kids and kickstart their summer vacation.

There are films which make you sit up, one such film is Nimir (2018). The film is a remake of Malayalam Maheshinte Prathikaaram (2016), which won National Award for Original Screenplay – the pedigree is obvious on every screen, as the movie was void of Kollywood’s overplay. I liked this film. Udayanidhi Stalin as Selvam, a wedding photographer in a small town has done his role well – he has grown up as an actor and certainly knows how to select his script. Parvatii Nair appears as his childhood sweetheart Valli. In the first scene, Selvam jumps into the river with his slippers in hand for a swim, that was shown tastefully in Black ‘n’ White – you realise the movie’s cinematography is going to be impressive – and N. K. Ekambaram delivers just that, every screen was a delight to watch. And the slipper that gets shown ends up playing a ‘key’ part in the film.

I have been seeing the trailer of Puriyatha Puthir (புரியாத புதிர்) for a long time, the film felt as if I had seen it earlier. You can easily identify that the film has been in the making for few years by the slimmer (compared to say Vikram Vedha) Vijay Sethupathi we see. A romantic-thriller directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi. The first part of the film is about the love between Kathir (Vijay Sethupathi), an upcoming music director and Meera (Gayathrie from Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom), a music teacher. The second half is about why Kathir is being blackmailed with "private" pictures of Meera taken without her knowledge, which reminded me of how bad this can be even for a teenage boy from the popular sci-fi show Black Mirror Episode "Shut-up and Dance". Director has succeeded in telling the untold emotional suffering a lady and her loved ones go through in this age of cameras everywhere, a theme we have seen in Kamal's Papanasam (2015) and few other films recently

Njandukalude Nattil Oridavela (2017) starring Nivin Pauly is a Malayalam film about a family coping with their mother’s fight with cancer in their own humorous way. All the cast are perfect for the roles they are playing starting with Shanthi Krishna (of Visu’s Manal Kayiru fame for Tamil audience) and Lal (who is known for his Villain roles in Tamil films like Chandi Veeran). I did enjoy the film and laughed at many places, at the same time the film did have its dull moments in between.

Kurangu Bommai (குரங்கு பொம்மை) is a story about a stolen antique idol, kept inside a monkey pictured travel bag, the double-crossing by the smugglers involved and the resulting murders told intervened with a love story. Kathir (Vidharth) is a call-taxi driver, who goes with his father Sundaram (played by Veteran Director Bharathiraja) to see a girl for marriage alliance. The girl is Viji (Delna Davis).With a short-film sized material, new Director Nithilan Swaminathan has managed to deliver a good feature film.