Director: Sarjun KM
Cast: Nayanthara, Kalaiyarasan
‘Airaa’ opens with shots of an ominous, haunted bungalow in Pollachi. Two policemen investigating some disturbance are spectacularly bundled out by the violent, supernatural force inhabiting the place. As they make a run for their lives, the film takes us back a few months to Chennai where we are introduced to Yamuna (Nayanthara).
Yamuna is an independent and progressive young woman, but the way in which the script establishes this is highly cliched and dated. Her boss at the media outlet for which she works is averse to her suggestions of launching a Youtube channel, her parents are consumed by a singular goal of getting her married off and of course, the boy they pick turns out to be the secretary of the Worldwide Union of Jerks. This is enough to make her pack her bags and run off to her blind Grandmother’s place..that bungalow in Pollachi. Her grandmother may be blind, but is also tech savvy. She has CCTV cameras fitted across the house and when the obvious question begs, she answers that her three pet cats help her by monitoring the footage! This is where Yamuna stumbles on to an idea- she launches a Youtube channel and with the help of her Grandmother and household help Mani (Yogi Babu), starts publishing spooky ghostbuster videos of the bungalow. These videos go viral and she becomes famous overnight. In a parallel sequence, there is Amudhan (Kalaiyarasan), who witnesses people fall to death in mysterious circumstances. His own investigation leads him to understand that these people are connected to the death of his partner Bhavani (also played by Nayanthara). There is a problem though, he figures out that the next target is going to be Yamuna, but has no inkling on how she might be connected to Bhavani or her death.
Airaa has a run time of 142 minutes..a good 20 minutes too many. In a horror film, this really dilutes the scares and decreases the tension, two pre-requisites of the genre. The highlight of the film is the flashback sequence that narrates the story of Bhavani (shot in black and white). Bhavani is the ‘cursed child’ in every way, or so everyone thinks. Right from the day of her entering the world, where her family laments the birth of ‘another girl child’, till her adolescent years and beyond, she is constantly discriminated and ultimately crushed. The only solace she finds is in her schoolmate Amudhan. He too leaves town at one point, only to be re-united with Bhavani many years later in Chennai. It doesn’t end well for Bhavani of course and the story is quite heart wrenching. Finally, when the connection between Bhavani and Yamuna is revealed, it is quite an interesting one and cheeky too in some respects!
Nayanthara is terrific in the way she essays both roles. She carries the film on her shoulders and leaves no stone unturned. What was quite disappointing about the film though, was the fact that it took no detour from the established formula of horror films in the industry. Name it and you have it- a haunted house, a ghost seeking vengeance, justification of that vengeance through a flashback sequence and finally closure. I expected an enterprising director like Sarjun (who gave us the terrific debut film Echarikkai last year) to break some of these stereotypes and bring a fresh perspective to this genre. This unfortunately did not happen and the script is haunted by the ghosts of many of it’s predecessors.
Overall rating: 2/5
