ANBARIVU REVIEW : GOOD CAST SALVAGES THIS PREDICTABLE DRAMA

Jan 06,2022

Anbarivu has a premise that we have been seeing on screen from days the days of Uthama Puthiran — estranged twins switching places and bringing down the scheming villain who has been causing trouble. The slight difference here is that rather than an action drama, director Aswin Raam gives us a rural family drama.

The film begins with the antagonist Pasupathi (Vidaarth, digging into this negative role with relish) narrating how he managed to separate his friend Prakasam (Saikumar, cast against type as a good guy) and his wife Lakshmi (Asha Sharath, dignified), the daughter of Muniyandi (Napoleon, who manages to soften this problematic character), the hot-headed Muniyandi big shot in Arasapuram, a village near Madurai. Pasupathi, who works as Muniyandi's help, had been hoping for a political ticket from the big man, who doesn't consider him because he is from the neighbouring village Aandiyapuram, which is looked down upon bu the Arasapuram folks because they are from a less privileged background. Caste is obviously the reason, but somehow, the film is hesitant to use the C-word. Instead, it chooses to talk around the issue with euphemisms. Towards the end, we get one visual, in which coconut shells are replaced by plastic cups in a tea shop.

The film tries hard to convince us that Muniyandi might be casteist and quick-tempered, but he also has a heart of gold and can change for the sake of his daughter. In fact, that's why he agrees to accept Prakasam, who is from Aandiyapuram, as his son-in-law. However, following the success of Pasupathi's plot, Prakasam has now gone to Canada with one of his twin sons, Arivu (Hiphop Tamizha Adhi, in his usual casual self), just a baby at that time. And so, the other twin, Anbu (again Hiphop Tamizha Adhi, trying hard to be a loud and colourful villager) grows up to be a ruffian-like character under the care of Muniyandi and Lakshmi. But when Arivu learns of a family back home in Madurai, he decides to return and reunite the family. With Pasupathi, who is now a successful politician, still working his schemes, can Arivu succeed?

Anbarivu, an overlong, predictable film takes quite a while to get us hooked into its story. The director spends a long time giving us cliched scenes and generic characters. We get a mandatory romantic interest each for the brothers (Kashmira Pardeshi and Shivani Rajashekar); there is a minor villain character (Arjai); a character (Sharath Ravi) who exists only to let us know what Pasupathi is plotting. The narrative plays out in very predictable fashion, intercutting between the life of Anbu in Arasapuram and Arivu in Canada. Even the manner in which Arivu gets to know about his family in India is done in a juvenile manner. And once the switch happens, we expect the second half to be all about whether he gets caught, and his countermoves against Pasupathi. It is here that Aswin Raam surprises us a little as we get to this point by the interval point itself.

And so, the second half turns out to be a modest improvement over the first as the relationship drama between Anbu, Arivu, their parents and their grandfather comes to the fore. The scenes in which Anbu and Arivu patch up with Prakasam and Lakshmi are quite affecting, and the reunion scene between the husband and wife works even better, calling back to an earlier scene between them. It also helps that the casting feels right with actors who make us care about their characters. But in the end, after showing Muniyandi the error of his ways, the film also ends up glorifying him in the very next scene, taking away some of the warm feeling it had managed to stir in us for a while.

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