Mella Thirandhathu Kadhavu is, essentially, an amazing album that saw the collaboration of two geniuses (M.S. Viswanathan and Ilaiyaraaja), with a semi-engaging plot thrown in to connect the songs together. The story is as messy as they came in the 80s (just kidding, it's quite decent compared to the atrocities that were being churned out in that decade), but it holds up thanks to the music, the beauty of rural Tamil Nadu, and of course, the brilliant actors. Whatever I say about Amala's talent is less- she was given a really weird character to play here, but managed to flesh it out and make it interesting anyway?? I love my underrated queen so much, just might stanning her son too. She is so cute here, and such a good dancer, it was a treat in itself to watch her- which worked out well for me, because she is the primary reason I decided to watch it in the first place. However, I liked Mohan's performance too, especially that scene where he bursts into "Vaa Vennila...
If you need one film to exemplify what the terms "half-baked" and "half-assed" signify, let it be this one. I saw that this was supposed to be inspired from Serendipity (2001), which I remember liking when I saw it ages ago... but Milenge Milenge just plagiarised its most iconic part and ran with it only to stumble and fall and take the audience down with it. And then Boney 'Wanakam' Kapoor had the audacity to say- "perhaps it was destined that the most romantic film featuring Shahid and Kareena would come after their relationship." Marketing and promotions really will have you saying all kinds of shit huh. However, as objectively terrible as the film is, I still couldn't hate it. Firstly, because I am trash, and specifically trash that grew up and had the most intense Bollywood phase in the early 00s, the period this movie is set in. Secondly, Haider has revived my crush on Shahid and now I can't unsee him as the chocolate hero of my child...
Honestly, I was already prepared to love this movie, simply because it stars both Sadhana and Shashi Kapoor. Moreover, this is the only movie that they did together, so I was very excited to see this one anyway. But even with all this, I was still not prepared to find this movie as beautiful as I did. First of all, the storyline is excellent- typical Bollywood trope of miscommunications and switched identities. However, there's nothing over-the-top about the movie. No melodrama, no excessively intense emotions, and certainly no unnecessary fight sequences. Just a quiet passion that blooms as the story progresses, and makes you fall in love with the idea of love even more. There's also no "villainisation" of any character- even the characters who make mistakes are treated as humans, not reincarnations of the devil himself. After all, it's human to make mistakes, the movie seems to say- and to add to that lovely sentiment, it also says that it's human to apol...
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