Vijay Sethupathi and Nithya Menen’s electrifying performances maintain Thalaivan Thalaivii collectively, notes Arjun Menon.

Pandiraj has a flavour to his cinema.

The director offers in broad-stroke storytelling set in villages surrounding household males, who’re put by means of the wringer of familial and social duty to ship justice.

After helming masala fare like Kadaikutty Singam and Etharkkum Thunindhavan, Pandiraj shifts his consideration to a husband-wife story in Thalaivan Thalaivii.

Akashaveeran (Vijay Sethupathi) is launched in a cheeky sequence that entails him in a face-off together with his spouse’s household.

Thalaivan Thalaivii is just not informed linearly, and also you get a snapshot of a curiously vibrant marriage, the place the road between love and melodrama is blurred.

We get a way of the explosiveness of the couple (together with spouse Perarasi, performed by Nithya Menen), who’re in a tumultuous marriage.

Akashaveeran has unfair expectations of his spouse and her brother (a person with a shady previous), whose presence of their lives units in movement among the misunderstandings.

 

Pandiraj appears to be following go well with with administrators like Shankar, who cited the ‘dwindling consideration span amongst youthful audiences as a crutch for TikTok’ impressed fast-paced, relentlessly paced dramaturgy, or lack thereof.

Thalaivan Thalaivii units up its self-contained world of two households at its core, making an attempt to coexist.

The movie is held collectively by the on-screen chemistry between Vijay Sethupathi and Nithya Menen, who conjure the snappy banter type equal of a slapstick comedy.

There’s a Howards Hawks-like screwball power to their conversations, the place dialogues usually are not spoken however somewhat thrown forwards and backwards with nice comedian impact.

The repartee between the lead actors hold the movie afloat even when the plot sidetracks.

Thalaivan Thalaivii has moments of quiet connection and rebellious mutual co-dependence between the husband and spouse, who’re crossing one another on the downward slope of a spiraling marriage.

The director’s dramatic sensibilities take entrance seat within the latter half, the place the movie nosedives into episodes that includes suicide makes an attempt, abuse allegations, infidelity fights, and lots of contrivances that really feel proper out of Pandiraj’s earlier work.

Santhosh Narayanan’s rating retains the native texture of the movie’s setting.

Pandiraj can not help however find yourself mining regressive story beats and insinuations relating to the character of rural life and the way interconnectedness and toxicity are anticipated to play out.

There’s a clear try to diversify formally, and the structural rigor of the movie represents an enormous step up from his earlier outing, Etharkkum Thunindhavan.

Nevertheless, the movie fails to measure as much as the insanely synced efficiency types of its lead actors, who’re having the time of their lives chewing the surroundings and detaching themselves from the rigidity imposed by their different current movie selections.

If not for the rest, this routine pageant outing is made memorable by the electrifying lead performances that maintain all of it collectively.

Thalaivan Thalaivii Evaluate Rediff Score: