Paava Kadhaigal is an Indian Tamil Anthology Series, a collection of four different stories directed by Sudha Kongara, Vignesh Shivan, Gautham Menon, and Vetrimaaran. It stars Kalidas Jayaram, Shanthnu Bhagyaraj, Bhavani Sre, Kalki Koechlin, Anjali, Gautham Menon, Simran, Sai Pallavi, and Prakash Raj. It was released on 18th December 2020 on Netflix.
The first story is Thangam directed by Sudha Kongara. The story takes place in 1981 in a village in the Coimbatore district. The son of a grocery store owner Saravanan (Shanthnu Bhagyaraj), falls in love with his childhood friend, Sathaar's (Kalidas Jayaram) sister Sahira (Bhavanisree), a Muslim. Kalidas is a transgender man who wants to goes to Mumbai after collecting money for his sex-change surgery. He is hated by his parents and the villagers. Kalidas, who is in love with his friend Shantanu, helps them flee the city after a little grief when he finds out that his friend is in love with his sister. What happens next in the story is worth seeing.
Of the trio of Shanthnu, Kalidas, and Bhavanisree, Kalidas scores the full marks for his acting and making an impact he should. Being a man, he has come to the forefront of behaving, speaking, and with body language like women. Both Shanthnu and Bhavanisree have acted naturally. The plot, background, and other characters are very natural, and whatever happens to Kalidasa in the climax has changed the original cinematic 25 minutes of emotional enjoyment in just two minutes, it's heartbreaking. It's the best among the four and has that impact it should have and hits you hard with its terrific performances and sensitively handled plot by Sudha Kongara. It's not an easy watch.
Love Panna Uttranum is directed by Vignesh Shivan. Despite supporting inter-caste marriages in front of the villagers, Veerasimman (Padam Kumar) is the leader of a party and is against inter-caste marriages from inside. He has two children, twin daughters. One stays with him while another is staying with her friend Penelope (Kalki Koechlin) abroad, and has not spoken to him for a year. Aadhilakshmi (Anjali), who is staying here, tells her Dad that she loves her driver. The rest of the story is about what the maniac father Padamkumar, who claims to accept their love, does next.
One could have made a two-hour film out of the story it has and that's what limits its potential to create an impact. Surely it's devastating and shocking to see a father doing such things to her daughter but 30 minutes window didn't do justice to this part. Kalki Koechlin and Anjali are in terrific form and Padam Kumar is terrifying as the villainous father. Vignesh Shivan did a good job of creating an intriguing plot but that lesbian angle seemed to be forced as it has hardly anything to do with the characters.
Vaanmagal is directed by Gautham Menon where Satya (Gautham Menon) and Mathiazhagu (Simran) play a married couple and they have a son Bharath (Aadithya Baaskar) and two daughters Ponnuthayi (Aangelina Abraham) and Vaidehi (Sathanya). The youngest daughter, aged twelve, goes missing one-day returns after a few hours, raped by some lustful fanatics. Mother thinks it would be a shame to talk about it outside. So she prevents her husband from filing a complaint with the police.
For the next few days, the family was in a dire situation. Bharath finds out who did that to his sister. Fearing for her life, Mathiazhagu makes a different decision, and in the climax, Bharath gives the punishment to the rapist that he really deserves. It saddens us that the younger girl tirelessly shows her grief and sadness with her performance and nothing more. But the climax is good and all the actors did a fine job in this story where it started as a regular family drama but become darker and darker as the story progresses.
The last one is Oor Iravu directed by Vetrimaaran. Janaki Raman (Prakash Raj) has a big family in a village. His daughter Sumathi (Sai Pallavi) marries a young man of another caste and flees the city. When he finds out that his daughter, who lives in Bangalore, is pregnant, he changes his mind and arranges for her daughter to come home and have a baby shower. Sumathi, who has been separated from his family for two years, is rejoicing in regaining the lost affection of his father, mother, sister, and brother. But Janaki Raman, a caste maniac, gives a big shock by not letting that happiness to last.
The first 22 minutes of the 37-minute story are such a breathtaking depiction of the bittersweet relationship of father-daughter in this part. Sai Pallavi and Prakashraj have both lived up to their roles as father and daughter. The director Vetrimaaran did a commendable job in presenting that so gracefully and beautifully. But we have to be more stone-hearted to see what happens in the last next fifteen minutes. It's not just one thing, it's too much to show and take. Its impact is heart-shattering and depressing.
The composers and cinematographers in each of the four stories have done their part with full commitment. Their contribution to these emotional stories is significant. Especially in the last minutes of Oor Iravu story directed by Vetrimaaran, cinematographer Suresh Bala has treated the lighting as a character.
It takes a lot of courage to read things that are passed as news in the newspapers. We read the news and wonder how could anyone be so stone hearted to do this. Visualizing those incidents is disturbing and here you get to see four strong impactful and gut-wrenching stories.
Paava Kadhaigal is one of those rare series that leaves you wanting for more with it's highly intensified brutal take on the cases to depict how the people react to people that stands out slightly different from the crowd. They get alienated from their friends and families and their own peoples. From this series, Thangam and Oor Ivaru were the two which I liked the most and this show sets off an alarm for those narrow-minded people who are still living in their 'what will society think' mindset rather than supporting and standing up for that strong soul who dares to live their life how they want to.
Rating:- 3.5/5
Now streaming on Netflix.
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