Director: GS Viknesh
Cast: Nayanthara, Rithvik, Barath Neelakantan
Streaming on: Hotstar
O2 directed by GS Viknesh and starring Nayathara is in many ways your typical survival drama. How it differentiates itself though is through a terrific plot set up. The story is centered around a five year old boy Veera (played by the superb Rithvik). Veera is born with a lung condition and needs the constant support of an oxygen cylinder to breathe normally. Nayanthara plays the role of the boy’s doting mother, Parvathy. In an early scene, Parvathy explains to another character how her son is different and cannot function like the ’rest of us’. What if a situation arose where the ‘rest of us’ would also be forced to step into Veera’s shoes and experience the world from his perspective? This is in essence O2’s brilliant pitch.
The story follows Parvathy and Veera as they embark on a bus journey from Coimbatore to Cochin. It’s the monsoon season and the bus is forced to use an especially treacherous route. Disaster hits in the form of a landslide. The road caves in and the bus is trapped under a heap of soil and boulders. Locked in from all sides, there is no way out for the passengers. What’s worse is that there seems to be no outlet for air to flow in or out, depriving everyone of oxygen.
Directing or even writing a survival drama comes with some inherent challenges. There is an obvious spatial constraint to consider. There are also only so many characters you can include in a story of this nature. Despite these limitations, the director is expected to deliver a taut thriller. And did I mention the role VFX plays in such films?
GS Viknesh has shown great ambition in this attempt. It’s also nice to see a senior actor like Nayanthara recognize that ambition and agree to be a part of the film. When it comes to the execution, I thought some parts worked really well and some parts didn’t. The director definitely managed to keep the tension up throughout. Some of the dialogues were well written too. I especially recollect one where a passenger who has just been released from prison quips how he’s not new to being trapped between four walls! The cinematography by Thamizh is impressive, considering the limited space and lighting he’s allowed to work with.
All good things aside, the film should have definitely had a shorter duration. Some sequences, especially towards the end, are a tad overlong. There were also some plot points that I felt were left open ended, like the one about the phone call Parvathy receives from her brother. The casting could have also been better. The acting was amateurish in places and I would have liked to see more prominent actors in some of the roles. Some of these shortcomings could probably be attributed to budgetary constraints though. Whether we like it or not, the budget does serve as the oxygen for most of our films today!
Overall rating: 3/5
