Neethane En Ponvasantham ~ Yet another Love Story~

Love stories are always the same: Boy meets girl. But the ways a story is spun and

narrated does matter a lot. Gautham Menon, with his usual charm has essayed a

graceful movie with a brilliant title ‘Neethane En Ponvasantham’. The theatres

attracted huge crowds in the first week possibly because there is no other biggie

release as of now but also because the promo trailers have kept the youth audience

anticipating the release of the movie for a long time now. One more reason

probably for the wait is the first ever composition by the maestro Ilayaraja for a

Gautham Menon movie.

The opening song is always for the hero of the story, and so is it here. The

song ‘Pudikkala Maamu’ highlighting Santhanam impresses the audience a lot and

sets the spirit high. The story opens with the title ‘A few moments from the love

story of Nithya and Varun’, so the audience can understand what they are gonna

see in a while. Varun (Jiiva) and Nithya (Samantha) are childhood friends in whose

lives misunderstanding plays a significant role. When they meet in Varun’s college

during a cultural fest, love re-blossoms. Things go well until Varun gets into an

IIM. They don’t try a long distance relationship even. Hence occurs a break. What

happens next is the rest of the story.

Prakash (Santhanam) as Varun’s best buddy and Jenny (Vidyulekha) as Nithya’s

friend drive the humor side of the movie with grace. The story is not magical but

very practical. It can be said that Gautham Menon has directed a new generation

love story and has nailed it in his attempt. But the truth is that he could have

done a lot better. Gautham’s movies lately have become something of the same

phenomenon. Three romance movies in a row: I appreciate his guts because

only he can do this and do it right. But it all follows the same storyline that

we are mostly able to predict what happens next. People who expected much

from ‘Neethane En Ponvasantham’ after watching ‘Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya’

were terribly disappointed because the flavor missing from the movie is: romance!

Sitting back and reminiscing about the movie, I remember more of fights between

the couple. This movie is good but this necessarily need not have been released

right after Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya.

After the movie credits roll and even after you go home, your mind radio doesn’t

stop playing the music after you watch the movie. Also the movie gives you a

great opportunity to relive a few moments of your life, maybe not everyone. The

movie is targeted mainly towards the youth audience, so no wonder if older people

don’t like it. The movie, though drags in a few areas especially in the second half,

it gives a few moments which create a huge impact and makes our heart a little

heavy. One more appreciable fact about the movie is that, in the second half three

songs come back to back but we don’t feel bored at all since they come along with

the story and the lead pair doesn’t literally travel to some exotic locations to dance.

The character of Nithya is beautifully portrayed and the emotions are expressed

so well by Samantha. The costumes for not only the lead pair but also for all the

major characters are elegant and simple.

Totally, the movie is worth watching once and one branded ‘Gautham Menon’ on

it. The Director has done a commendable job but Gautham Menon is capable of

doing better if he just comes out of his ‘Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya’ reverie.

The Grand Finale of the Twilight Saga

The ‘twilight’ saga has been creating a huge sensation among the young adults for the past few years. It had remained a solace to the ‘Harry Potter’ fans too ever since the sequel ended. ‘Team Edward’ and ‘Team Jacob’ has been a new cult for the evergreen mythological vampires vs werewolves in recent times. The major success behind the twilight saga could be attributed to the fact that the story is set in a real place where real people live. Also the narrative is in first person mode by the protagonist Bella Swan and she connects to the reader easily.

The first three movies, though tried to portray the book to its most possible extent, the books always outshone the movies. But there is something unique about the movie ‘Breaking Dawn Part II’. People who have already read the book knew what to expect from the movie but what the movie did in turn was to take the twilight fans into a land of ‘Expect the unexpected’. 

Breaking Dawn Part II retained the original cast and began from where the part I ended. Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) wakes up as a vampire and finds herself awesome. Through her vampire husband Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) she comes to know that she had been out for only two days due to transition. Next she encounters her former werewolf boyfriend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) who had recently imprinted upon her daughter Renesme. The story turns serious by the unexpected visit of Irina, a friend of the Cullens from Denali coven. She mistakes Renesme to be an immortal child. The creation of an immortal child is against the vampire law and Irina ends up reporting the Volturi about Renesme. But the truth is Renesme is not an immortal child. She is a human child with vampire powers since Bella was still a human when Renesme was born. So, in order to defend the child against the Volturi, the Cullens gather an army of vampires from around the world to prove that Renesme is not an immortal child. The werewolves also join hands for the sake of Jacob.

Almost by the end of the movie, in the climax there is a slight deviation from the book to make the movie slightly interesting. In the actual book version, the Volturi is convinced that the child is not an immortal by the army of vampires. But in the movie, Aro refuses to believe and the encounter grows into a bloody fight where Carlisle and Jasper are murdered by the Volturi. It enrages the Cullens who in turn kill the vampires of the Volturi. The fight ends with Alice killing Jane and Aro being killed by Edward and Bella. The turning point is, none of this happens and it’s just Alice who has shared her vision on the future if Aro doesn’t trust them. Ultimately Aro is convinced that if he fights against the Cullens, he’ll die. So the Volturi leave.

Later Alice has a vision of Edward, Bella, Jacob and Renesme living happily ever after and she smiles which Edward notices too. In the closing scene, Bella and Edward are in the meadow where she allows him to access her thoughts and a series of events from the moment they both met till the current moment  visualized with the background song playing ‘A thousand years’. The lyrics of the song is perfect.

The grand finale is carefully sculpted so as to give importance to each and every character in the movie. Bella’s wardrobe has been changed to indicate her transition from a plain school girl into a flashy vampire. The camera work throughout the movie is amazing and captures things to convey us the power of vampire vision. The movie is stylish, classy and full of humor when compared to the other movies in the sequel. The movie has many instances of humor: the arm wrestling between Bella and Emmett and Bella practicing her shielding power on a retreating Edward. The background music throughout the movie is spell binding and the song ‘A Thousand years’ is absolutely beautiful. The Director Bill Condon has done justice to the final part in this epic saga by sculpting everyone to perfection and glorifying all the characters in the credits.

Bottomline: If it was not for the twist by the end of the movie, there’s nothing to say much! Though the story is let down in some instances, it picks up pace by the end. But the movie is strictly for twi-hard fans and fiction lovers.