'I' Movie Review

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Every time a big movie comes in, we see this happening. We see people beating down something that doesn't deserve it. It is a well known fact that Shankar Shanmugam is a magician and he's proved it again and again through his movies. No matter what his movie talks about or big the star cast is (be it Rajini Kanth orKamal Haasan or someone without such a crazy fan following like CHIYAAN VIKRAM), they just work their way through the box office. This time it is different. The highly anticipated "I" hit the theatres this January and the response wasn't quite the way it was expected to be. People have a lot of complaints about the movie.

1. Direction & Storyline

Shankar, as usual, pulls off a visual master piece. No wonder he is called James Cameron of the Indian Industry. A lot of posts I came across talked about a bad screenplay. This man is a main stream commercial movie maker, unlike Anurag Kashyap or some others. He somehow manages to embed a socially relevant message in all his movies. He did it again, as far as I could interpret them, which we will get into in a later section. He carefully pushes through a plot to keep the viewer interested and I'd say he did it again. Though a lot of the movie was predictable, it is a great Indianised version of the Beauty and the Beast. Well, most of it is. It is easy to pick on someone at that level, but keeping up his trademark screenplay at such expectations is a herculean task, as we know it.

Storyline is the biggest point that a lot of posts and reviews picked on. I would definitely agree with the reviews that said they could've put in more effort in writing the story, but not with those that say there is no story at all. Come on, every movie is a single line story, no matter how big the movie is. The greatest of movies come with the simplest of storylines. So did this one. Bad storyline is definitely not a reason to miss out on this visual grandeur.

If there's one thing, I think, that could've helped the movie is a bit shorter running time. At 3 hours and 10 minutes, it definitely is a long movie. But, honestly, I couldn't think of a handful of scenes that could be edited out. That would only make it more unorganised.

2. Actors

Our Indian film industry has many promising actors and Chiyaan Vikram is definitely one of them. From Siva putrudu to Aparichithudu (Anniyan), he took our south Indian industry to a different level. However, this movie is special. Staying focussed for such long periods and the level of dedication that is needed to build a body that is on par with professional body builders' and losing all that mass to fit himself in a hunchback character (seriously, he dropped his weight to 40 from 75 for that one character and you will see that in every frame.) Honestly, how often do we get such actors, who take such life risks. I totally think he deserves a great recognition for his efforts. Well, I am not sure if he's going to get the National award, but still. He's outdone himself, yet again.

Amy Jackson, I was never a fan of her acting, but she did gain some convincing acting skills for this movie. She did her job just fine enough, I think. Her trademark glamour role portrayal still exists. And others, well, the negatives do their job pretty fine. But this Vikram's one man show.

3. Music

A.R. Rahman. Enough said. But, when I heard the sound tracks for the first time, I wasn't quite happy. They are the way they are for a reason and we can understand that only after we watch this movie. He's good at mixing classical music with mainstream cinema music and now he even brought in Techno and electronic music into his armoury. They, definitely, are a fresh kind from the master.

Oh god, the background music. All I can say is that I am happy to be alive in such an era of a master musician. Great work by a great man, again.

4. Cinematography & Art Direction

Shankar has a trademark of visually grand picture (wallpaper quality) and this movie takes it to a whole new level of locations. Exotic China is so beautifully captured that I started searching for tickets to China, right after I got back. P.c.sreeram, the magic eye for this magician. What can I talk about the internationally reputed cinematographer. He just killed it. The locations were just right for the tracks and the nativity of a middle-class man in the locations of his surroundings were just perfect. The vibrance in colors and the palette is a feast to the eye and a definite watch on the silver screen or a 4K TV if you own one.

The sets this time were better than ever before. Robot was a movie with great sets, but this one has something that's very new. Here, I am talking about the Beauty and the Beast song set and the first track for the actress. Very carefully crafted. I am not even qualified to judge that beautiful work. I think all I can do is just admire and live in that fantasy world for those 6 minutes.

5. Social message

A few of my friends told me that this movie doesn't give out a social message like his previous movies did. But, I think they did notice them, but failed to understood why those points are relevant for the society right now.

1. Pedophilia
We see a lot of news everyday about sexual assaults on children and this is a burning issue that needs to be brought out. So did this director. I don't want to spill more beans regarding this as it would be a spoiler for yet to watch audience. Well, I may be interpreting it wrong as pedophilia, but it is the closest thing I could think of after watching this movie.

2. LGBT
We laugh at all the comedy tracks on the transgender people in this movie. But one thing we fail to see in this movie is that we take their emotions way too lightly. The point here is that they too are emotional beings and their wishes and emotions are to be valued. This is something that is not really present in our current day behaviours towards the LGBT community. They are often made fun of and are separated from the society.

3. Inner Ugliness
All of us are ugly on the inside and there's no hiding it. Just that a few of us a relatively less uglier than others (On a different note, Ugly by Anurag Kashyap is a brilliant take on the ugly side of people). This movie shows us what people can do when their ugly inner mind of someone that is well educated makes hasty decisions that can ruin someone's life. Improper usage of scientific knowledge can lead humanity into destruction and it is just scaled down to one victim in this movie.

These are the socially responsible insights that I could make out from this movie. Do let me know if I missed or overlooked any. Our ultimate aim is to understand the director's perspective too and help people from not losing out movies that are worth a watch. Also, for a movie under production for so long, this might not be the best outcome, but this is not something bad either.

This is my take on the movie and I'd love to see others show me their perspectives and opinions on this and any other movie that I shouldn't be missing.