Come and get soaked in Romance

As soon as the title card starts to float in the water, you get carried away to set yourself float in the air. There are so many girls in the world…Why in the Earth did I fall in love with Jessie?... confesses the protagonist Karthik in the very first frame at Jessie’s marriage. From there are you are showered with romance for the next 150 minutes. It’s pure and pure romance at its best.

I sincerely admire the director who crafts almost all his films by narration. You are hearing to someone’s story with visuals in it. The colors are pleasing and appealing so that you get lost in the frame and watch it as if it’s happening around you. It’s almost more than seven decades that Indian screen is seeing Love and Romance. More than a million films would have spoken it through different virtues. Still a story of two hearts and minds hold its very own value because of the rhythm notched to it. It’s just about hitting the right string in the right spot at right time to bring out the touching magical music. Karthik falls for Jessie at the first sight [Why would not he]. His perception of love doesn’t come after fixing something in mind... It would one day come and hit you and turn your world upside down and that happens when he see Jessie.
A couple of more glimpses and consequences make him come closer to her being a tenant in her house. One fine day he finds her in his home and there begins the first conversation. She is a year older to him and has an ultimately different way of up bringing from what he has been. He aspires to become a film maker and she has so far seen 5 movies in her entire span of life that too without her fathers knowledge. Another day he suddenly confess in front of her that he’s in love with her in all of a sudden. She leaves him blank!. The conversations are apt at places with not more than a line each. The other thing which takes you in is the presence of the lead pair on screen. You find them everywhere. She leaves to Allepey and he follows her. He searches for her all around and find her in a church on a Sunday noon. He apologies for his confession of love and she agrees [with a disappointment if you notice carefully]. They decide to be friends and continue with that. The consequences that follow are simply poetic. She replies [Unnoda paarvayala avanga ennai parkalayo ennavo] “May be they haven’t looked me through your eye” when he asks her that there might have been a lot of guys who would have proposed her. Ah!.. This is class with a smooth background score.
The dilemma of Jessie to chose if she want or don’t is so very clear to both. Generally in love stories you find the hero trying to impress the heroin and vice versa. Here right from the place where he confesses his love to her, they both know what they want and you find no scene where both try to impress each other. They both are what they are and simply do what they do. She informally intimate that she likes it but she doesn’t need it. She feels that there is Love but it is not. At a point you feel like Slapping Jessie on face and ask what the hell you need. She agrees later in a part where she doesn’t know what she wants and that’s the problem at all.
There are so much of expressions in body language, silence and conversations through eyes between the pair which in a conversation you are told about the Chemistry between them. Both the character stands as a painting in front of you. Even after her family comes to know about the issue they handle it practically and sensibly. There is humor sprinkled all across the film which keeps you light in the air. Generally in movies we are shown that the girl is either locked in a room or her father beats her etc., etc., Tamil cinema has grown up and thanks to people like Gautam. Finally she stand up to her love and break out during the day of her marriage [that is the time when our Karthik gets to know she’s in love madly as he is]. The scene post interval where both meet up the night is just a virtual poetry. You just can’t stop admiring the conversation when she breaks for him. You simply nod to these lines when she says “Karthik, you are one awesome guy” and he replies “You are one awesome woman Jessie”. They are made for each other. The romance is simple and that’s why it’s so sweet. To express romance you might not need pages of dialogues... It’s just the body language which is more than enough and when you have A. R. Rahman to score the back ground what else one need. However here comes a song and I don’t find words to praise Thamarai. The language Tamil must owe a lot to her. From where the earth does she digs such words from the language which everyone uses in day to day life but realizing its impact.
The most interesting part is the place where the movie ends where Kathik and Jessie come together and you feel happy!.. Karthik the director of the film ends it there. It’s simply narrated that this happens in a movie and not in the real life when Jessie walks away asking Karthik [naan enna avlo nallavala Karthik?] “Am I such a good girl, Karthik?”. You too feel that the end of Karthik’s movie should have been the end to this story as well.
I couldn’t remember any other Tamil movie [for the fact even Hindi movie] in recent times which has so much of romance in it and made an impact on me. All I could remember is Kadhalukku Mariyaadai [Respect for Love] which came a decade ago. Gautam has crafted a masterpiece. It’s another virtual poem of him!. Hats off!....
I am sure that I would watch this many more times.... come and get soaked in romance!....