THENDRAL (/5)
	: Parthiban & Uma
	Music: Vidyasagar
	Direction: Thangarbachaan
Remark: A welcome breeze - Another Azhagi?

This is a poetry. Just as I start typing this review, I can sense my eyes getting wet. Such is the magnitude to which the heroine, Thamarai (Uma) has impacted me. No…I am not an emotional person….Agree…you may not like sentimental movies….but this movie is different. It is not one of those “Me too” movies. This is a fun filled, emotional, musical poetry that speaks about the life of innocent Thamarai. The heroine as a little girl is obsessed with a famous writer, Nalankilli (Parthiban). Our hero fights for social causes and his writings have a social theme. He is motivated from within and cares a damn for the society. Smoking, Drinking and Women are his vitamin energizers. Thamarai stays next door and is in love with Parthiban (without Parthiban even realizing that such a person exists). Thamarai’s mother passes away in a fire accident. She gets cheated by a pimp who takes her to a hotel and leaves her with a customer, Parthiban. When Parthiban has sex with her, Thamarai is more than happy to share the bed with her star. It is only when Parthiban pays her fee does she realize that she was treated as a sex worker. Unperturbed, she just smiles at the camera (Interval). When she gets pregnant, she treats it as a gift from her love. She brings up the boy. Fate moves the boy to his father. What happens next and does Parthiban realizes this innocent girls love for him forms the end part of the movie. Director Thangar Bachaan needs to be appreciated for such a wonderful effort. Not many people move out of the pseudo cinema world and try to create such good movies. His first movie Azhagi was a masterpiece and this one is not very far from it. The acting by Uma and her younger version (don’t know her name) is excellent. Vidyasagar’s music is a plus. Especially the “Thanava Koney” (Koothu) song with Lawrence choreography is amazing and touches the heart. “Adi Thozhi” amd other songs are good melodies too. Thangar’s cinematography is simply superb. The narration becomes slow at times. The extra importance given by the director to his son Arvind Bachaan (plays the role of Parthiban-Uma’s son) should have been minimized. The young boy has acted well too. I have used this word poetry very often because the entire movie looks like a collection of love poems. Thamarai’s joy when she visits Parthiban’s room, keeping the peacock’s egg under the hen, her anger when Parthiban is arrested, the night with Parthiban, sending peacock’s feather to Parthiban, Parthiban banging his head in the low ceiling of Thamarai’s house and many more such scenes. Will this movie reach out to the larger audience? I think it will or rather….. “It Should”.

- Gokul Santhanam & Prem Anand S