Not only does this scene make it clear that Hema isn’t the woman for Thamizh, it also hints that he’d be better off with someone like Yamuna – he’s that kind of guy. She gets her say in a spirited scene where she tells Thamizh that the reason they broke up isn’t their disagreement about the parents situation, it’s that he reacted the way he did, not even bothering to hear her out. Hema tells Thamizh that she wants a nuclear family, and we know, at once, that a break-up is imminent – the umbilical cord, after all, is to the Tamil-film hero (especially one named Thamizh) what the lasso is to John Wayne. We only get the aftermath, with Thamizh explaining why he needed that drink.Įven the heroines are written interestingly – I say “even,” because many films would consider their work done just by giving the hero a woman on each arm. He even manages to subvert the TASMAC moment. A man, his wife, his ex – it’s a recipe for fifty shades of awkward. It’s a brilliant bit of writing, as is the much-later scene where Hema (who has now split up with Thamizh) comes to stay with Thamizh and Yamuna. I smiled a lot – in the wedding-night scene, for instance, between Thamizh and Yamuna, where she asks him why he wanted a wife and he unleashes a story that begins with a dead brother. These are situations from the world around us, so why don’t we see them more in the movies? One of the signs a film is working for you is how much you catch yourself smiling.
Or take Thamizh’s mother, who emotionally blackmails her son into a temple visit. In his first scene, he dispenses advice about porn and beer. Take Thamizh’s father (K S Ravikumar, who, apparently, is a much better actor than director). He writes characters deftly, defining them with a sharp scene or line. Keep persevering, and you’re soon calling your NRI pals: “ Machi, get me some Heineken from duty-free, da.”īut within this small circle he’s drawn around himself, Velraj locates interesting tangents. Falling-in-love, in these films, is like acquiring a taste for beer. Then there’s the girl who points to the hickey on her neck, the fair-complexioned second hero (Adith Arun, playing Thamizh’s cousin Aravind), the fairer-complexioned out-of-one’s-league heroine (Amy Jackson’s Hema) who first snubs the hero and later finds him irresistible. Given the Selvaraghavan ethos, “having sex” seems more appropriate – it suggests sweat and humping. I’d have said “making love,” but that suggests mood lighting and scented candles. It’s referenced in the cramped living quarters where parents stuff their ears with cotton so they don’t end up listening to their son in the next room having sex with his new bride. 7G Rainbow Colony is referenced here – in a theatre screening, in a poster. Thangamagan is a reworking of Velraj’s earlier (and first) film Velaiyilla Pattathari, which was a reworking of the prototypical Selvaraghavan story about a low-key loser. I don’t want to over-praise Velraj, exactly, for his work thus far has been decidedly derivative. A for… And you can bloody well wait to know what happened. For Velraj, screenwriting is: A for… Action. For most Tamil filmmakers, screenwriting is pre-emptive exposition. Again, we don’t get the scene where they discover she’s pregnant – at least, not yet. We don’t get the scene where he loses his job – at least, not yet. Thamizh is moving to a new house, and the house suggests he’s moving down in life. Oh, it’s raining, which, in the movies, means one of two things: romance, or trouble. Beside them, in an auto-rickshaw, are Thamizh’s mother (Raadhika Sarathkumar) and wife Yamuna (Samantha). Thamizh (Dhanush) and his friend Kumaran (Sathish) ride up to a house. For one, the hero gets no big-ticket introduction – not in the get-the-fans-screaming sense, considering the whistle-ready title, Thangamagan. It’s an unusual introduction for a movie with a big-ticket hero.