Almost every story starts in one place and moves toward its intended destination. Along the way, twists and turns act as agents of change, altering either the plot's path or the characters' behavior. This structure is made explicit in a road movie, which begins at a source and ends at a predefined destination. Like the twisty roads and sudden changes in the travelers' plans, the story shifts its route and changes gear at just the right moment to ramp up the drama and tension. Sudheesh Sankar's Maareesan (written by V. Krishna Moorthy) is one such road movie that dutifully adopts the genre's structure. It follows Dhayalan (Fahadh Faasil) and Velayudham Pillai (Vadivelu) as they go from Nagercoil to Tiruvannamalai to Coimbatore and so on. But Maareesan is also a drama thriller, so Dhayalan is not an ordinary man — he's a purloiner. Velayudham Pillai, on the other hand, is an Alzheimer's patient. Dhayalan decides to deceive Velayudham after secretly discovering that the latter has Rs. 25 lakhs stashed away in his bank account. Since Velayudham suffers from a memory problem, he often mistakes Dhayalan for his son and calls him Kumar. Dhayalan, obviously, doesn't care. He is too busy taking advantage of the situation. All this thief needs is the PIN of Velayudham's ATM card. That's the primary objective of Dhayalan. But you can only understand how difficult it would be to extract such information from an Alzheimer's patient. This is where Maareesan traverses the terrain of the comedy genre. So you see, it's not just the characters—their paths and motivations—that change, but even the tone of the film changes.
Such stylistic choices, alas, generate surface-level rewards. Maareesan is a film that can be admired for its petite ambitions, but those ambitions harbor something ugly beneath them. (Rest of the review contains spoilers.) It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Velayudham is faking his Alzheimer's. The only question we ask is, "What's his end goal? What's his motivation?" The answers expose the film's rotten conception. Velayudham is revealed to be a vigilante who kills pedophiles — sexual predators who abused teenage schoolgirls. Velayudham's wife, Meenakshi (Sithara), a psychologist, tried fighting for the victims, but her dementia came in the way of justice (all the charges were dropped against the accused as Meenakshi failed to identify him in the court). Meenakshi's dementia got so bad that, one day, she mistook her husband for a police officer and requested him to kill the criminals. This is why Velayudham is hunting down sexual predators. Now here's the problem: By converting a horrible incident into a narrative twist, Sankar and Moorthy undermine the pain and trauma of the victims. The tragedy becomes a piece that's neatly slotted into its place to complete a puzzle. The effect is more like watching a blank being filled; we are not allowed to feel for the sufferers. We learn nothing about the girls or their family members. How does a mother try to cope with the loss of someone so young? How does she manage to carry out her daily routines or interact with the people around her? Maareesan offers only a superficial portrayal of torment, barely suggesting any real distress. Sankar merely goes through the motions, and his depiction of despair is no more compelling than the flat line: "The parents are mourning for their children."
What's perhaps more nauseating is that the sexual assault turns into an excuse for the filmmakers to focus on male solidarity and companionship, as Dhayalan and Velayudham grow close to each other. Maareesan is more interested in their chemistry, their dynamic. Faasil and Vadivelu not only get more screen time than the victims but also hijack the movie by stealing the spotlight from them. Maareesan, in many ways, reminds you of Maharaja. Both films use the subject of sexual assault to show off their cleverness, making both of them equally repulsive, emetic, and horrendous. Don't filmmakers like Sankar and Nithilan Saminathan see that they are undercutting the gravity of a serious issue by attempting to be slick, stylish moviemakers? Don't they realize that they themselves come across as opportunists — as exploiters? Look a little deeper, and you will discover something more dreadfully offensive about films like Maareesan and Maharaja. They validate the anger of the vigilantes and the mobs by showing no trust in the legal system. This is especially evident in Maareesan. Velayudham and Dhayalan become gods when they brutally murder all the pedophiles. The police and the judges, meanwhile, are mocked for following rules and regulations and for sending heroes like Velayudham and Dhayalan to prison (one of the police officers turns into a fan of Velayudham and Dhayalan). One can detect Sankar and Moorthy's contempt for the authorities — they encourage people to take the law into their own hands. The writer and director mock the phrase "Truth alone triumphs." The manifesto they promote is more like, "Go out there and kill the perpetrators," or simply, "Violence alone triumphs." Sankar and Moorthy, in other words, act as rabble-rousers.
Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times