Thiagarajan Sivasankaran

I didn’t expect such a Tamil Classic, interwoven with Historical facts and beautifully created Imaginary Characters to be made as a film in its full form. I have read this novel at least 25 times and expected the film to revolve more around Vandhiyathevan. Both MGR and Kamala Hasan, while taking the film rights to the novel, preferred to play the role of Vandhiyathevan and not that of Adithya Karikalan or Arulmozhi. This proves that it was not just me that expected the film to revolve around Vandhiyathevan. The industry itself focused on Vandhiyathevan’s story. And probably MGR and Kamala Hasan did not succeed in converting this remarkable novel into cinema due to this paradigm. Vandhiyathevan's story does not have emotional moments except in the last chapter of the novel, which could attract viewers. And it took a few days for me to digest the fact that Manirathinam focused more on the story of Nandhini and Adithya Karikalan. The moment I realized this concept, my view of the movie from Mediocre changed to Excellent. Manirathinam has captured every fine narration of Kalki on Adithya Karikalan and Nandhini and presented it in a cinematic form exceedingly well. Including the choice of actors for these roles, costumes, and the picturization of Kalki’s imaginative narration of events. The portrayal of Nandhini’s character was very well done by Mr. Manirathinam. In fact, PS 2 starts beautifully depicting the relationship between young Aditya Karikalan and young Nandhini. Kudos to those two youngsters who played young Nandhini and Adithya Karikalan. And the murder scene was picturized extremely well. Nandhini’s hesitation to kill Adithya Karikalan, as described by Kalki, was very well captured in cinematic form, Thanks to dialogue, photography, action, and direction. (of course, I missed Manimegalai here!!) Manirathinam has rendered absolute justice to Kalki in the cinematic form with reference to these two characters. Both Vikram and Aishwarya supported Manirathinam in bringing these two characters to life before us. And then the story of the ever exuberant and adventurous Vandhiyathevan (which made many readers of this novel identify themselves with him more than anyone else in the text) and his love for Kundhavai was well brought out by Manirathinam. The love story of Vandhiyathevan and Kundhavai finds a place in PS2, and Kalki also does not value this story much. I felt that Manirathinam should have retained the Death Scene of Periya Pazhvettaiaraiyar and his final confession to Azhvarkadiyan. This was visualized by Kalki. This would give more meaning to Vandhiyathevan and Periya Pazhuvettaiaraiyar's roles towards the end. This scene shouldn't have taken more than 7 to 8 minutes. This could have been achieved by dropping Sendhan Amudhan and Poonguzhali as he dropped Manimegalai. The presentation of events involving Ponniyin Selvan and Madhuranthakan and the story of Arulmozhi crowning Madurathnkan sacrificing his right to the throne seems to have been done in a hurry. Otherwise, a great classic and I enjoyed all moments of watching the movie as I enjoyed every moment of reading the novel..