‘Nirangal Moondru’ movie review: Karthick Naren’s comeback vehicle is a trippy and indulgent hyperlink film that almost works

‘Technicolour’ seems to be the word of the week when it comes to the releases this Friday. If The Colours Within and Wicked from two different corners of the world are technicolour spectacles, director Karthick Naren’s latest outing, Nirangal Moondru, not only makes for an addition to that list but also treats the three-color process as a metaphor for the men who populate its vibrant world.

“Vazhkaiye oru nadagam dhaane” (After all, isn’t life a drama?), says a character, and this drama takes the Shakespearean thought of ‘All the world’s a stage’ a little too seriously. When Parvathi (Ammu Abhirami), a high schooler goes missing, her father and teacher Vasanth (Rahman) and her “friend” Sri (Dushyanth) spread out searching for her. Concurrently, Vetri (Atharvaa), a budding filmmaker, gets his bound script stolen, and with his relationship with his cop dad Selvam (Sarathkumar) hostile, it’s up to him to find his script. With these unrelated incidents occurring on the same night, the characters and their wants and needs collide, unsurprisingly.

Boiled down to its core, Nirangal Moondru is the story of fathers and their relationship with the lives they have brought into existence. Sri’s family problems make him loathe his father, but he sees a father figure in his teacher, Vasanth, which makes him guilty of developing feelings for Vasanth’s daughter, Parvathi. Vetri’s detest for his own father, Selvam, is a stark contrast to the love a politician has for his spoilt child who rubs Selvam the wrong way. In a way, one can even draw a parallel between Vasanth’s trepidation of losing his daughter with that of Vetri, who has lost the script he carefully birthed with his first and only love, films.

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Karthick Naren takes his own sweet time.; he takes the whole of the first half to establish these characters and their motives. Within that span, while the film gives very few reasons to root for them, what keeps us engaged despite a not-so-clear way forward for the script is how much he reveals about his characters without getting expository. But whether the different worlds of our primary characters come together seamlessly is a different question altogether, and that’s where the film fumbles.

Unlike many hyperlink films we have had in Tamil cinema, which strived to balance its multiple plots equally, the makers of Nirangal Moondru clearly have their favourites. As the only connecting point for the subplots and the pivot for the film to display its balancing act, it’s Atharvaa’s character that the film sides with for most of the time, and when Vetri mouths a line about a senior filmmaker betraying the trust and belief a newbie has, you know it’s anything but coincidental; it’s personal!

It’s in the Atharvaa segment we see the film come to life, quite literally. As a drug-fuelled filmmaker whose downward spiral is accentuated by the array of substances he abuses his body with, they make for some of the most visually vivid sequences of the film. Add to it a brilliant score by Jakes Bejoy (who’s having a spectacular week with releases in three languages), and with the technical prowess of cinematographer Tijo Tomy and editor Sreejith Sarang, the trippy sequences take us on a journey through Vetri’s out-of-body experiences. Of course, there’s a cursory ‘don’t try this at home’ warning in the form of a character telling how he’s been sober for a year, but Nirangal Moondru does not aspire to be an inspirational film of a drug addict getting clean; contrarily, it does not hold back its punches with its portrayal of narcotics.

A still from ‘Nirangal Moondru’ 
| Photo Credit:
@Ayngaraninternational/YouTube

While Atharvaa does an adequate job as a youngster going through a plethora of emotions, it’s the seniors of Nirangal Moondru who show how it’s done with characters that have more to it than meets the eye. Though short-lived, it’s a treat to see Sarathkumar embrace the villainous role that reminisces of his earlier films as the antagonist before turning into a full-fledged hero. Rahman, too, gets one of his meatiest roles in recent times in Tamil cinema and he effortlessly pulls off a layered character.

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Past the trippy visuals, which include Atharvaa as God with his own trident (the film is riddled with Hindu iconography and references, right from naming a character Parvathy and its use of snakes and lizards), it’s apparent that the film gets self-indulgent. Not only does this make the otherwise slim runtime seem longer, but the convincing ending makes it feel that the film takes an easy way out.

A pop culture fan, Kathick loads the film with metaphors and references. For example, the three main characters’ names are what they are chasing in life; there’s even a Tenet-inspired action sequence. But, they fail to make up for the rather convenient writing choices that result in questionable twists and character arcs. While Nirangal Moondru might be far from perfect and not as intriguing as the filmmaker’s fantastic debut, Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru, it’s definitely miles ahead of his recent works Mafia: Chapter 1 and Maaran. Even if Nirangal Moondru might not pass with flying colours, it’s a step on the right path for its young director, who is more adept at working with high-concept scripts than high-flying stars, for that’s what brings out his true colours as a filmmaker.

Nirangal Moondru is currently running in theatres

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