Vaaranam Aayiram

Krishna learns that his father has died. He goes home for the funeral and thinks about him along the way. The narrative goes back. As a young man his father Krishnan had fallen in love with a woman; the narrative shows his story first. Then comes the son's: his search for a girl he saw on a train, the university years, what he lost and his joining the army. The relation between father and son is different in each period. The narrative mixes the two; the same actor plays both parts, and that is a choice. Gautham Vasudev Menon writes and directs. Suriya plays both the father and the son; Simran, Divya Spandana and Sameera Reddy are in the cast. The language is Tamil. The film won the national award for best feature in Tamil. Suriya prepared two different physical appearances for the part and the transformation is what is most cited. Harris Jayaraj wrote the music and the songs sit inside the narrative. The matter it treats is how a father builds a son; the film says so directly and makes it an argument. The narrative does not proceed straight; the jumps in time are frequent and the sections are joined emotionally. Part of it was shot in America and the change of place works inside the narrative. Its limit is length; the narrative is long and the soldier strand in the last section is detached from the main story. Who it is for: viewers who like Tamil cinema and stories of fathers and sons. Who it is not for: it is long, the emotional dose high, and the last section weak.