Ayothi is a Tamil movie directed by R. Manthira Moorthy and has Preethi Asrani, Pugazh, M. Sasikumar, and Yashpal Sharma as the main cast. Ayothi was released on Zee5 on April 7, 2023, and had its theatrical release on March 3, 2023.
Ayothi starts with Balram selling offerings at one of the ghats in Ayodhya. He misbehaves with his customers, clearly indicating how he would be in his personal life. Janaki, his wife, is a loving woman who takes care of her children and husband. The one thing she lacks is raising her voice at the wrongdoings of her husband. They are going to Rameshwaram for Diwali and the wife thinks that the holy water of Rameshwaran will change her husband. They all start their journey from Ayodhya and get down at Madurai Railway Station. From there, the family takes a cab to Rameshwaram, which is 1-2 hours far.
In the cab, Balram gets into argument with the driver. He bangs the driver’s head on the steering wheel which resulted in an imbalance of the car and hence an accident. The driver, Balram, Shivani, and Sonu suffered minor injuries, but Janaki got a severe head injury. Because of the language barrier and no known one in that city, the family has to face a lot of difficulties. Balram still doesn’t accept his mistakes. Shivani joined hands in front of strangers to get help for arranging her mother to an ambulance. These strangers help them throughout with the ignorant father in the background babbling things he shouldn’t be saying.
Sometimes strangers help us in a manner that no one even knew would. In this estranged land with no help, these strangers were the form of God as they helped unimaginably. Balram’s ignorant behavior takes the front seat in Ayodhi. Men like him exist, we see his types in our surroundings as well. In front of everyone, they behave like there’s no one better than them when in reality they’re the worst.
Ayothi in my opinion should have instead been named Rameshwaran as all the things happened in that city and not in Ayodhya. Also, a better title would be one that suggested the attitude of the father towards his family. The man of the family has a role to look after his family and in Ayothi the father we see is horrible. He has no respect for the work his wife does, doesn’t want to pay for his daughter’s college, and even hits his wife in front of the children. Despite being a pandit, chanting gods' names, and praying, this man didn’t know how to behave with his wife. Even after she died, he got no chills and instead ran around blaming others when he was the one responsible.
This two-hour long film seems like a tiring experience as the same topic could have been told in an hour also. The film seems to be too long to hold the attention of the audience. The subject raised in the movie is of importance but the time taken to show the same seems tiring. Yashpal Sharma did a fine job as Balram and did Preethi Asrani in the role of Shivani.
The most memorable scene in the whole film is when Shivani finally gets the courage to stand up against her father. They were standing in front of the embalming hall when Balram starts to say that he’ll not allow this as it will not allow his wife’s soul to go to heaven. At that moment, Shivani finds the courage to stand up against her father and says “jab zinda thi tab toh jeene nhi dia”. I found the scene to be empowering because no one in Balram’s family ever dared to stand up against him.
The background music played at the start of the movie seems too romantic to go with what was going on. For example, there was a fight going on, and in the background, we have soft romantic beats. In another introductory scene in which Abdul was chasing some people, it looked like he wasn’t chasing them but calculating how to adjust his speed so that he doesn’t catch the enemies too soon. He was supposed to be running, and the distance between him and the enemies was too small, he was seen stopping at moments. In all, some scenes in the movie could have been improved.
Final Score – [5/10]
Reviewed by - Riya Singh
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Publisher at Midgard Times