 ‘Neethaane
En Ponvasantham’ is yet another avatar of love revolving around
Varun -Jiiva and Nithya Menon -Samantha from their age of 8 to
24yrs. Over the years, the theme of romance-centric films has
captured the interests of universal audiences. The problem with
Neethaane En Ponvasantham is the fallible writing. The concept
is perfect as it kindles the emotions of love, especially during
the second hour, but its erroneous screenplay and flimsy
dialogues that spoil everything.
While a film is conceptualized with a wafer-thin storyline, it
is obviously the engrossing screenplay that would keep the
audiences intact. The film is lengthy in parts with the first
half running to 90 minutes and except for Santhanam, it doesn’t
contain anything impressive. Well, Jiiva as usual walks away
with winning laurels with his naturalistic performance and it’s
a great re-launch of Samantha in Kollywood. Of course, female
lead roles have a strong characterization in Gautham Menon films
and so is Nithya Menon. Every actor in the film has excelled in
their roles. Actor Raghavendra as Jiiva’s father is brilliant.
The portions involving Jiiva and his family have been very well
captured. Thanks to Gautham Menon’s special affinity towards his
family as the moments are so realistic.
The momentum picks up soon after
the intermission as Jiiva goes in search of Samantha to Keral.
The egoistic clash between Jiiva and Samantha before
intermission is surpassing as the actors perform without a
single cut. Kudos to the cinematographer for his crane shots and
Ilayaraja’s background score.
Ilayaraja has strained a lot over his giving grand efforts on
background score. Songs are pretty mellisonant, but they test
your patience as the tracks keep occurring relentlessly. Gautham
Menon always loves capturing the moments between guy and gal
walking across the deserted roads, beaches, spending times at
coffee shops and kissing. Well, there aren’t steamy scenes in
the film, but romance is expressed through it. Samantha’s
dialogues ‘I learned two things from You – One is Cricket and
other one is .....’ yes, watch it over the screens. The entire
conversation between Jiiva and Samantha during the night before
his marriage with another girl is a cherry-pick of this film.
‘NEP’ is a decent film that will surely attract female
audiences, but it could have been better if the screenplay was
done in an engaging manner. Since youth groups are not very much
adhered to Ilayaraja’s music, it may or may not work out as
music was an intriguing part in Gautham Menon’s previous films.
Gautham Menon trademark missing |
