Director: Seenu Ramasamy
Cast: Vijay Sethupathi, Gayathrie Shankar, Guru Somasundaram
Maamanithan marks director Seenu Ramasamy’s fourth collaboration with Vijay Sethupathi (if you include the unreleased Idam Porul Yaeval). Their last outing together, Dharmadurai, was a smashing hit and remains one of my favourite films from recent times. Almost as an ode to that film, Maamanithan’s story is also set initially in the scenic Theni/Andipatti region.
Though Maamanithan translates roughly to ‘a great man’, we first meet Radhakrishnan aka Krishnan (Vijay Sethupathi) as someone leading a very ordinary life. He is an autorickshaw driver, is happily married and has two young kids. Krishnan isn’t satisfied with this though. He wants to provide a better life to his children. He wants to give them a convent education and wants them to be able to converse fluently in English. This drives him to explore business opportunities in real estate. Things go south in this endeavor though. For no fault of his own, he is labeled a swindler and is forced to flee town. A happy family is split and torn apart overnight and the rest of the film is about whether and when circumstances allow their reunion.
Maamanithan is a film where the characters travel geographically and chronologically. The story unravels over a period of about ten years starting in the 2000s and we travel along with the characters to Theni, Andipatti, Kerala and also Kashi where the film’s climax plays out. Seenu Ramasamy’s writing is consistent and captures the mood of the film perfectly. I loved the subtle figurative undertones, like for instance when Krishnan is first smeared with allegations of swindle while he’s seen wearing a pure white attire. There is also a wonderful exchange between Krishnan and his kids at the start of the film about how running (as a physical exercise) lightens one’s burdens in many ways. The imagery of his kids literally witnessing him on the run when he has to flee town was striking given this context. Apart from these subtexts, there are also some neat surprises and twists, especially one towards the end when two important characters meet unexpectedly at Kashi.
Vijay Sethupathi’s acting is commendable and the way he adapts his demeanor to align with his character’s arc, especially as the film travels through time, is impressive. Gayathrie Shankar shows great poise in playing Krishnan’s wife. A major highlight is also Guru Somasundaram’s performance as Krishnan’s best friend.
This brings me to what I loved most about this film. It addresses a variety of themes, but the most prominent one was that of friendship. For some reason, this particular relationship is not always depicted with depth in Tamil films. Most of the time friendship is used as a set up for comedy in our films. Here though, the lengths to which Guru Somasundaram’s character goes to help and support Krishnan and his family in times of crisis was really touching. The title of Maamanithan could equally be conferred upon his character as much as Vijay Sethupathi’s you would think!
Overall rating: 3/5
