After a colleague said that the movie is lovely I spent a good two and half hours watching it and I am still wondering what is lovely in it.
About 40 minutes into the movie, one can guess the entire plot. It is that predictable. What makes a movie an epic is it is as unpredictable as life is and makes an impact on you. Unfortunately this movie failed to make any such impact on me. For those who come saying “If you had a school crush or something you can connect to the movie” please shut up and go away.
I have seen more school relationships (actual relationships that mattered) than you. I can say that much. I studied in a co-ed school with a not so big class strength. So if you are a student in that school for a long time, you will recognize almost everyone. And there is a chance to become friends with almost everyone. And how I come to know about relationships is that no school actually lets a boy and girl sit chat alone (at least when I was in school it was pretty common) so there will always be this small group doing a watchman work for them. I am usually caught up in that group. I know I should be ashamed, but who cares. I made more friends because of that. No one suspects if 2 girls and one other guy are chatting in the far corner of the school ground. And no one looks behind the tree because that is where the couple will be sitting and we will be covering for them. Now that will be a story I will connect to.
When you show school romance, there will be at least one friend covering up for the protagonist. What I don’t understand is when school students had so much freedom as to go to each others’ house when love was almost a taboo and a guy and girl being friends was almost impossible (this movie happens in the late 80’s right?) I mean c’mon, such a concept was taboo even till 2000.
So what is the “oh so predictable story” you ask?
Its simple. Guy1 and guy2 are friends who always hang out together. Guy2 likes this girl and asks guy1 to go and tell it for him. When guy1 approaches her, the girl says that she likes, no loves him and not guy2. So guy1 thinks about it and decides that he also loves her and they get into a relationship. Guy2 develops a grudge (yeah like you can’t guess that) They roam around ooty and the police catches them in the pine forest. Guy1 tries to straight things out with the girl’s parents but things get nasty and he is sent to jail. All of this is a flashback that guy1 thinks about while he escapes from jail just before he is produced in the court. He runs to a graveyard to see the girl’s father crying. Guess who died??? Guy1 is asked to get psychiatric help and he goes into a depression when the girl’s family moves to a different city without his knowledge. And I would like to stop at that because the rest of the story is all known already. And yeah! Guy1 kills himself in the end and joins the girl in heaven.
Arya’s brother gives out facial expressions as good as Arya does. Goodness boy! Show some extra smile. Nothing wrong in that. Just because you are portraying a serious character doesn’t mean you have to be stoic all the time. While the girl shows some actual colors the guy kind of ruins it by saying “I Love You” with the most serious expression one can ever pull off. Honestly can’t you show the jitters you get when your lover says that she loves you? Oh God!
Why are school romances, or what they label as “intense romances” always shown to have one person having a not so normal childhood or will have only one parent? And they will be needy? And the other one will be the one giving all the love they have been missing all their life? Why can’t two completely normal people fall in love and still have strong feelings for each other that they can go to any extent for them? Why? Just why?
I thought that is what immortal love is all about. When you have everything but you feel fulfilled only with that particular person. Isn’t that what it should be?
Just when I was letting out a sigh of relief that they are not giving the based on true story thing, I check the wiki page for this movie and see that it is in fact based on a true story that happened in Chennai. Oh give me a break!
Not sure if the media should be blamed for creating such an image about love or media is just exaggerating what could have been a normal love story that didn’t end so well.
Not so epic afterall!