Qalandar Reviews VINNAITHAANDI VARUVAAYA (Tamil; 2010)

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Gautham Menon isn’t my favorite director. Although I hugely enjoyed his Minnale (2001), that film didn’t have much of what later became recognizable as his style, a post-Mukull Anand, post-Agni Natchitharam chic marked by neo-Hollywood technical slickness and crisp lighting, whether in the service of police procedurals that began better than they ended (Kaakha…Kaakha (2003) or Vettiayadu Vilaiyaadu (2006)), or more domestic genres (Pachaikili Muthucharam (2007); Vaaranam Aayiram (2008). So I was hardly enthused when I heard Gautham was making a love story with Trisha Krishnan and Silambarasan in the lead (if there’s a hero I like less in Tamil cinema, I haven’t seen him). Until I heard Gautham had jettisioned long-time musical collaborator Harris Jayaraj in favor of working with A.R. Rahman. And saw stills from the film, featuring a hero I was assured was “Simbu”, but who looked nothing like him. Clearly, Gautham was returning to the love story genre of his first film from 2001, but didn’t want to tread old ground.