I watched it! Two movies in one weekend! I am very proud of me. And this was a goooooooooooooooood movie. The plot is still crazy complicated, but the individual scenes are so lovely and powerful I could enjoy them and forget about the plot.
The first movie was good, and I was intrigued by how the plot and conflicts were set up. This movie resolves all the conflicts, but resolves them in the most character and emotion packed way possible. So that I don’t really care about understanding the resolutions, I am too focused on seeing the emotion in the faces.
The Vikram-Aishwarya scene that has been built up this whole time is goooooooooooooooooooood and resolves everything in their relationship. Aish gives maybe the best performance I have ever seen out of her. I am sticking with my theory that she acts better when she is dubbed, somehow it frees her up if she doesn’t have to think about dialogue. Alternatively, she acts better when Ratnam is directing her. One of those two things. Anyway, she is AMAZING in the scene.
Surprisingly, there is also an incredibly good Aish-Prakash Raj scene. I can’t remember if they’ve had a lot of scenes before, I am sure they interacted at some point in Iruvar, but I’m not sure if they did in anything else. But again, Aish is freed to do face acting, and Prakash Raj is as amazing as always. Good thing the scene is so good, because it closes out a storyline that got short shrift.
Not surprisingly, there is another hot and spicy Trisha-Karthi scene. I guess it’s good that it is good, but it also makes me sad because I want so much more of them together and we just don’t get it. One scene! That’s it! And a few significant eye glances.
The main “plot” is non-romantic of course, it’s all war and alliances and inheritance and stuff. There’s a major battle conclusion that works for me, and then the conclusion-conclusion is also pretty cool. The rest….eh. At a certain point I have a REALLY hard time telling bearded men in armor in dimly lit rooms apart from each other. I am pretty sure there were dramatic moments of shifting alliances and so on and so forth, but I couldn’t really follow it.
Good news is, I didn’t have to follow it! If you just enjoy the boy bits as adventure and cleverness and horse riding, that’s fine. And then it is the girl bits that really REALLY drive the story. Ratnam is so good with female characters, always. And this story gave him great templates to use for them. It’s also kind of a statement about royalty and families. Sure, the boys can go off on their horses and things, but it is the movements that happen in the royal quarters among the women that REALLY matter.
