The plot centres on the plight of youngsters who come from rural areas to Chennai with dreams of making it big here. The debutant director has tried to depict their struggle in the city, focusing on their problem of getting a suitable accommodation.
There is a realistic tone almost throughout, and the first half is finely crafted and executed. But in the second half the director seems losing his grip on the narration.
It centres on four friends who share a room. Karthik (Linga) is a philanderer who brings women to the room frequently, and his tolerant friends leave the room for him. There is Nagaraj (Prabanjayan) who couldn’t earn a couple of thousands to buy a cycle he had promised his nephew back home. And Chellapandi (Simha) is an aspiring director, the sober of the lot, focused on preparing his script. There are some finely crafted moments here.
The whole episode of Karthik and Vino (Saranya) is an engaging one, though towards the latter part it takes a cliche ending. The scene where Karthik, a smooth talker, breaks through Vino’s resistance and seduces her has a natural flow, the two actors performing with instinctive understanding.
The undercurrent of antagonism between Nagaraj and Karthik is laced with humour. The problem bachelors face to get a lodging in the city, the apathy of friends who make flimsy excuses to evade them are moments we connect to.
There are a couple of amusing references to the ways of the film industry. Like this scene, where an aspiring director when asked why his first film was dropped, replies with tongue in cheek, ‘’Cinema has no logic. Even Marudhanayagam was dropped, while some shady films make it to theatres!”
In the second half the narration turns jerky, the positive effect of the earlier part negated by the inadequacy of the second. More and more new characters are introduced, as Chellapandi is forced to shift rooms. It may be a natural course of events, but we fail to connect to the characters.
And while individually a couple of the moments here work, linked to the whole they seem a distraction. Simha takes over the second half and it’s mainly his struggle to find a suitable place of dwelling that we get to see. A consummate actor, he, however, is mostly listless here, his role not well fleshed out. But amusing is the scene where locked out of his friend’s apartment, he makes attempts to sneak into the building, dodging the eyes of the house owner.
The ending is rather abrupt, as if the director had suddenly lost interest in the proceedings.