Aandavan Kattalai

Gandhi is from the interior of Tamil Nadu and wants to go to London to work. He consults an agent, who proposes a simple solution: say you are married and the visa will come easily. He has a non existent wife called Karmeghakuzhali entered on his passport. The visa is refused. Now he has to have the wife's name removed, and the only way is a divorce. For a divorce he has to find a woman actually called Karmeghakuzhali. M. Manikandan directs and contributed to the screenplay. Vijay Sethupathi plays Gandhi and Ritika Singh plays the woman opposite him, with Pooja Devariya, Nassar and Yogi Babu in the cast. It opened on 23 September 2016. The target is bureaucracy. At every step there is another document, another signature and another middleman; the narrative is about the system that makes lying necessary rather than about the lie. The second strand is theatre. Gandhi works with a street theatre company, and the group being invited to London tightens the knot. Manikandan was known for Kaaka Muttai and works the same vein: small people dealing with large systems, with the humour coming out of that. Vijay Sethupathi does not play the character as a hero; the man is helpless, incompetent and frequently in the wrong. Who it is for: viewers who like Tamil satirical comedy and narratives about bureaucracy. Who it is not for: the pace drops in the middle, the romantic line is predictable, and some supporting characters are types.