I don’t want to really review this film because Gautham Menon just came for my talk show Hands Up (the episode will air on March 12, 9.30 p.m. NDTV HINDU) and anything I say will be seen as saying good things about him in return. Haha!
So as much as I liked the film personally (Gave it 7.5/10) I am going to skip to the parts that didn’t work for me. And if you haven’t yet seen the film, you may want to come back to this post once you’ve watched it so that I don’t ruin the ending for you.
Stop reading because the spoilers begins here:
This isn’t the regular love story, this is a ‘Why did I fall in love ‘ story and the related angst soulfully voiced by Alphonse (Aromale) is what’s making the film strike a chord with the audiences.
And my problem is that this angst is stifled by an ending that’s neither here nor there.
Gautham now wants us to believe they can be friends. Really? Do we want to be friends with people responsible for that very angst, let alone invite them for a premiere of the film all about that?
The last 10-12 minutes of the film (Specifically, the moment from where he sees on Brooklyn Bridge) including the ‘Happily everafter’ song (Gautham says it’s only two and a half minutes long) I thought were the weakest portions of the film despite the fact that it had one of the best scenes in the film – the scene at Central Park on the park bench.
Instantly, I connected it to a similar scene at the end of 500 Days of Summer and I realised how the situation the couple was in was almost similar (Gautham hasn’t seen 500 Days nor is the screenplay even remotely similar and to be honest, the similarities I am talking about are limited to the ‘Boy Loves Girl, Girl Leaves Boy’ knot and the related angst. )
Here’s the now-married girl sitting with the guy who still loves her and… just as you think here comes the part where she gives him closure (like in 500 Days of Summer), she stumps him (and us the audience) by saying she never married and that she loves him very much and the Happily Everafter song sequence begins…
As the song begins, we know for a fact that there’s a twist waiting at the end of it, one that’s a fairly easy guess – that he’s only imagining it (the audience at this point really does not care for parental opposition because the lovers are together).
So for two and a half minutes during the song, we wonder why is the director trying to make us believe that All is well….
And then, predictably, the hero makes it a part of his film within the film and that film ends with Trisha sitting next to him… Not as his girlfriend as we’ve been led to believe until now but as a married woman who wants to be friends with him.
I find it hard to believe that a girl who didn’t walk eight feet towards him at the bridge to say Hi would travel over eight thousand miles to watch a film he made about her, especially when she hates cinema. Yes, maybe she was just in town conveniently or maybe she wanted to end things on a good note and stick to her promise of watching his film…
But my problem, honestly, is that Gautham wants them to be friends at the end of it. Because apparently, that’s how it is in life. Gautham believes that this redeems the girl’s character and makes us feel that she isn’t a total bitch.
First, I don’t think the girl becomes a bitch by not showing up or even saying Hi to the boy because she obviously has her reasons and we see the angst and helplessness in her eyes now that she is married even when she walks away from him.
Second, her presence at the premiere does not in any way change our impression of her – she was confused and consistently so. And her confusion led to the boy’s angst.
Yes, it is a very mature ending no doubt about that. It’s very mature to think that the boy and the girl can be friends. But one look at the guy in that last scene and we know he’s a broken man. He still feels the same way about her and she’s moved on. He hasn’t got his closure.
Which is why that scene in 500 Days of Summer comes to mind. Summer is nice enough to provide him with that closure but here, Gautham does not let Jesse give the boy his closure.
The boy could have got his closure by never seeing the girl again – his last memories of her being walking away from him at the bridge. Yes, Trisha could’ve still continued being part of his desired reality (his movie ending) and watched the film with him as literally the girl of his dreams and given him the closure after it. All she had to say was: “Jesse chapter over, what next? And yes, whatever happened, happened for the best.” and given him a parting hug. The completion of the film could’ve been that cathartic release of the angst that will enable his closure with that parting hug from the girl who wasn’t there.
Her absence at the premiere would have drilled home the point that she didn’t love him enough. And that would have been tragic that the last image he had of her was – her walking away from him on the bridge, a classic larger than life moment of chance, of films, of unrequited love.
But her presence just brings us to the real world awkwardness of being friends with your ex. Who wants that shit? This is why many of my friends who watched the film said they couldn’t feel the tragedy. Nor did they feel happy that he made the film. They just had mixed reactions, felt it was awkward.
Maybe Gautham wanted us to feel awkward about it. Maybe that’s his take on tragedy – being friends with the girl you love (not once loved, but still love).
I, for one, wouldn’t wish it upon my enemy. 🙂
Which is why the ending didn’t quite work for me.
MADRAS INK. 
I think you are over-analyzing the movie. It’s Kollywood after all. What i feel is, Jessie offering a hand of friendship is just for a namesake. In all probability, they are never going to see each other again. How do you part ways? Simbu (Karthik) is no Barney Stinson. “We’ll continue to be friends” is perhaps Gautham’s idea of saying a decent Goodbye.
hiii guys i think its very common to simbu……coz he fallen in luv so many times ….so nothing new to him….guys take it light…. cheerup..!
bye tc gudday
I partially agree with your argument regarding the ending. I hope you asked Gautam in Hands Up if something similar happened to him
Moreover, Trisha’s character was consistently irresolute … she was one of those girls who, without realising it, administer a lot of pain to the guy… some women are like that, they’re vacillating and silly, and they just don’t know it.
Simbhu’s character was one those guys who let themselves be enveloped with the grief, instead of delivering a bitchslap to the ambivalent girl and moving on. But such people often use their grief to create something beautiful, like a painting, or a film. I saw the guy’s unhappiness at the climax as a good thing, he is driven by sorrow, it only makes him stronger as a filmmaker, although weaker as a person.
Felt the same way about the ending. And in a totally different context, Gautham is becoming highly indulgent. He surely could do with better editing and casting.
Personally, I felt that Simbhu came across more like a jilted stalker than a lover.
LoL. Your review made me laugh . It was nice and you were being frank .
I loved the movie… except the final portions, but for reasons different from yours.
Can completely understand your reasons though. 🙂
The ending was very real, I felt. And one thing I never understood was complaining that the character was inconsistent in doing *something* because he/she did *something else* previously. In reality, people are very inconsistent, flawed. So why not in movies? And about the films, fantasy logic… that’s the director’s prerogative …Isn’t it?
Lekin, ab tum argument mein flashback ghusedoge to main hum log kya bol sakte hain???
I never had a problem with the inconsistency. I wrote she was consistently confused.
And yes, it’s totally the director’s prerogative on whether or not he wants to end it realistically or make it a fantasy, just like it’s my prerogative to like it or not. I couldn’t relate to the girl being there for reasons mentioned in the post.
The inconsistency I was talkin ab’t was the eight feet logic…
And the prerogative thing…my mistake.. realised it just after I posted the comment…but got disconnected immediately…
I liked the climax solely because I felt it was very much possible. And for the fact that atleast this story din’t have a “filmy” ending like it happens in scores of movies (frm all the “Woods”).
I dont know how you came to the conclusion that gautham wanted the two to be friends or even portrayed them as becoming friends. Attending a premier of a movie directed by an ex-lover is a 3 hour re-acquantance at best. Stretching that 3 hours to mean friendship is a huge leap in logic.
I dont think people view the ending as a beginning of a friendship and therefore conclude that the movie is mature. The movie shows 2 endings cleverly and makes us think that one of them is improbable and the other more realistic. it also shows that sometimes somethings simply don’t work out. thats why its mature.
I did not say it’s not mature. I agree it’s mature. I just don’t like mature in a movie about angst.
And wat about the fact that they were on and off .. On and off again and again! Personally I wanted to rip my arm off if she said once more ” Enakku unnai pidikkum Karthik ” . Wasn’t that a little too much for the audiences to handle. Cos I obsereved that the people sitting around me in the theatre were lik ” well , there she goes again! “
The film is a about the on and off turbulent romance and the angst arising out of that confusion in the girl’s head. Without it, there’s no story there.
I felt trisha cud have acted better. her character looked like a person with out values(wants to flirt but not marry him) more than being indecisive. Actually u dont feel anything when they get separated. anyone who has watched hum dil de chuke sanam will understand that Thats the big drawback of the film. the film had content for 2 hours. gautham simply dragged it.
We have been watching this same kind of love story again and again, and it is insane to find that many ppl still like it. No wonders why! VTV could have been portrayed as a tele-film or stuffs like that. Gautam cud hav portrayed their luv scenes in one single song and then the climax. Finished, the movie would have ended in 20 mins!!!
Karthick: Ulagathula ethanayo ponnunga irundhum, naan yen sir Jessiea love pannen? Me:Ulagathula ethanayo nalla padangal odinalum, naan yen sir indha padathuku vandhen?
As long as we have people like you, there will be more films like Race. 🙂
Films are not about stories, they are about storytelling. Unfortunately, in India, people go to the movies to watch a new story… they miss out on the storytelling. A film or story is like a journey with the characters, you may not like the destination but the journey makes the whole trip worth it. Which is why even if I don’t like the ending, I cherish the journey that brought them there.
Well said Sudish…
“Films are not about stories, they are about storytelling. “
I completely agree with this – “Films are not about stories, they are about storytelling. Unfortunately, in India, people go to the movies to watch a new story… they miss out on the storytelling. ”
Well said. You enjoyed the journey but the ending spoilt the memory of the journey. Personally, I liked the film which includes the ending.
Having read all the comments above, I hope that I don’t at most hybridize them all and pack them in my vehicle, just like Mr. Gautham served us a partial blend of ‘(500) Days of Summer’ and ‘Annie Hall’ (though very slight) on his very own ‘vazhai ilai’.
I don’t think the casting was anywhere near inappropriate. Not even character inconsistencies, not when there was no ‘perspective’ at all, I mean, how can you have an inconsistency where there’s no character at all. To me, Karthik was after a really pretty neighbour and Jessie liked the attention she got, and apart from that I couldn’t see anything that was there between them, nothing at all. Where’s the relationship, man? ‘On and off’ happens when there’s ‘something’ at least! Not otherwise.
I had an additional point. Jessie crashed one wedding, she apparently has ‘guts’ enough. To crash one and still be terrified of her dad? Come on!
I am not sure you understood 500 Days or Annie Hall in the first place. Annie Hall concludes and asserts that Love Fades. 500 Days says there will be Autumn after Summer. VTV says We just don’t get over first love. Ever. Which is what I don’t agree with. The reason it works is because there are many who can relate to that angst arising out of the girl’s confusion – She loves him, she loves him not.
Shall we say VTV says, you do not get over your first love ever until you meet your next love…personally may be we feel that because, personally our first love does not bother us much in our mind because we may be in love again, may be with a not so confused person in life.
I don’t think VTV says that at all. They just showed a phase of his life. They didn’t show the guy dying unmarried.
You are right.. that is where i could not understand.. first love – you can remember and cherish, but life is too short not to move on and the most mature thing to do.. birds of same feather flock together, the character of jessie will be in flight with the same type of person, and here there are no opposite poles to attract either, both Karthik character and Jessie character like Pain, so they suffer it, and the only commonality, is that they inflict upon each other, but one is mature to move on..
//Maybe Gautham wanted us to feel awkward about it. Maybe that’s his take on tragedy – being friends with the girl you love (not once loved, but still love).
LOL! I loved the twist at the end but I agree with you when you say that it dint make sense showing jesse in the last scene and all that just friends shit. Maybe he should have just shown that jesse never showed up at the premier of his movie or something.
P.S: The ending has been changed now i hear. I was told they stop it at the part where they show film by karthick.
Can I get a confirmation on this please? The ending’s been edited to a happy ending? God I hope so…
Exactly my point ! Without the angst there is no story in it . The story teller had one piece of theme which he kept twisting around in loops . It truly didn’t give a good vibe during the offs . Hiphops and the film promos were all Deja vu. The only place I thought simbu did give a good act was in the park scene , on the bench.
Ps: kudos to u on the Kandasamy review. Enjoyed every bit of it!
No, you didn’t get the point. Without the confusion, there’s no story. This story is about confusion in the girl’s head. And the boy’s angst is a result of the girl’s confusion of constantly changing her mind.
Nice review – I didn’t like the movie one bit. I agree that Jesse’s confusion is the crux but Gautham didn’t make it interesting. Her reactions were just tiring and actually made the second half of the movie very slow moving. This movie had no effect on me and Gautham’s masala film Minnale was much better.
the ending dint work for me too..But more so with days of summer…Like a few people,I still would like to believe that the bench scene was Tom’s imagination and Summer
didn’t care enough for him to give him that closure..what with the initial ,
“especially you jenny beckman.
Bitch.”
It was too good a film for me ,to be portrayed as a ‘coming of age’ film reg coincidences..
On a lighter note,if that bench scene was true i would have wanted tom to throw her down… (the location was perfect)..lol
p.s:excuse me if i had posted something totally irrelevant ..
Loved the narration and the way the story was weaved. I totally second your thoughts on the ending- completely awkward. There was this point at the climax wherein Simbu quips “this is not your car” for a minute it gave me a feeling that she would get into his car. That would been more lame 🙂 I would have loved the movie if it were shorter by 10-15minutes. Jessie as a character is a confused girl but there had been times when Trisha, the actor appeared confused on what she were doing but it is a lot meaty role than her previous ones.
I enjoyed watching it.
i completely relate to the movie and your post, Sudhish.
I was ok with the climax.. thats a fair ending. In real life there are no bitches. we are all mere victims of circumstances, (I forgive my girl too. and hey am talking of real love here), so Gowthams aim was not to show Trisha as a goody-goody girl in the end, but rather to show she had moved on and really wanted him to move on too. her complexities were beautifully captured and each line was a gem.
ofcourse simbhu never carried an ego with him.. (after all he loved to touch her feet n all) no wonder he wanted to invite her for the movie screening. he respected her.. and he feels she was the reason he became a director…and never quite moved on too..
wonderful movie.. and wonderful post too 🙂
Arun (mokkai_mak)
PS: And i know the best thing that happ to you 4 yrs back.. she was my junior at coll!
I think the whole point about showing both the maturity AND tragedy in the movie was by Karthik retaining the angst in him, which, again, would exist, only if he continued to love her. I guess this is the purest form of tragedy, which GVM has shown brilliantly. My only crib was that their romance could’ve been explored more, esp. since they shared some awesome chemistry.
Very True…
and u wud love each n every fram if u had gone thru those phases in life…Like mine 🙂
Feel for you man!
I think everyone goes goes through something like this in their lifetime. No? Only me?
A lot of scenes were very larger than life and definitely fit into the whole “musical” scheme of things. But coming from Simbu, it just felt oddly out of place and made it feel like any other bit of over action in an otherwise extremely real movie. Simbu just did not work for me.
I liked the climax, but it was hastily done. I did not feel the pull in my heart and I did not have a tear in my eye. I wish Gautam had taken the effort to trim the fluff and made it more straightforward. I loved the two narratives part. Some of the less cheesy dialogues were simply too awesome. But when Karthik in a wannabe monotone said – “It was a one way ticket to heart break city” – I laughed out loud and that was just wrong.
Jessie turning down the guy in the altar just pre interval – that was completely uncharacteristic for her character. Until that point in time, she likes Karthik, enough to acknowledge that she might be falling for him, but it has not been established until then exactly how much she is into him. It is only post interval that we see her falling deeper and deeper. Given that this is the case, she has her doubts sure, but that she is uncertain enough to do something as drastic as what is shown is not believable.
I would have been so much happier with the movie had that one scene not been there. Everything else could have been the same, and towards the end this scene had come about instead of the whole contrived central park scene. If Karthik had gone to Jessie’s wedding towards the end of the movie and then imagined a Graduate-Like ending with them running off from the altar whereas the actual ending was for her to have gotten married, that would have been so much more of a real movie. I found that because of placing that scene in the middle, everything was diluted. I just gave up after that point.
I liked your review for the movie but I quite do not understand you and others rating this movie so high. I did not quite like the last 45 minutes of the movie. I thought that the movie was dragged on unnecessarily and it should have just ended when she told him that it wouldnt work. In the end I just wanted one of them to die or both to jump off the Brooklyn bridge. I have gone through a torrid affair myself and once someone breaks up I really don’t understand how they would ever want to meet again. Towards the end the beautiful love affair became a tedious one to watch. I really came out not caring about what the end was or not feeling anything for the poor guy who got dumped. If not for the great music and cinematography I wouldn’t have watched the entire movie. This movie was nothing different from other such romantic movies in the past. It was just a technologically superior film than others and nothing to rave or rant about. I am disappointed that you gave the movie a 7.5/10. I think this movie is for crazy romantics (I guess I am not crazy enough to like it).
Hi Sudhish,
Loved ur review, i would prefer to use the word frustration rather than angst to describe Karthick’s feelings.I say this cos at no point in the film do we see him portraying hatred.
Secondly everyone has their own interpretation of the lead lady’s character, but i can fully understand that there is nothing out of character, ‘unpredictable, inconsistent’- doesnot matter.
I agree its the journey to be enjoyed and how succeessfully menon has managed to take us on another journey.
To me i did not seem like Jessie was ‘confused’. just seemed like she like the caught in a spot between two choices, she like the feeling of being in love but did not like the outcome .
She portrays clarity in knowing how the situation would end, and how she would not be able to change the outcome but wanted to enjoy the feeling of being in love and being loved.
This from Karthick view point sure feels like she is confused.
Cheers
Amal
Gautham makes movies that are known to be longer than most movies and that is because he says the story in a more elaborate way. He deals with the little (trivial for most directors) emotions and expressions that he needs the movie to be longer. As Sudhish pointed out, he has told the story in his own way – which is a beautiful one. The feet touching, the kissing before knowing it, the need for the guy to believe his girl is not dumping him, to want her physically and emotionally is all real. And beautiful. I do not know if it is a good movie. But I do know that I loved watching it. It is not a movie to analyze and write a review on. It is one to watch and relate to (if one has the fortune of doing so).
you are right. it needed a closure. a small rearrangement of scenes in the end would have driven the point home.
also completely agree on the, “..Maybe Gautham wanted us to feel awkward about it”, bit.
And god trisha lived her role. never seen her a better actor. simbhu reinvented has almost arrived. a little more work on his diction and man he is going to have some very good time ahead.
I thought the movie was OK…not worth watching in a theatre, not worth asking your friends to watch, but a mistake that you could endure because you perpetrated it on yourself. The movie has been hailed and placed on a pedestal by media…one critic whose opinions I value…Bharadwaj Rangan actually claimed the movie was refreshingly different…I guess he access to substances which I dont…and he abused them before the movie…
In my opinion the movie is neither different or refreshing…Trisha shud stick to her routinue of a few half naked songs in exotic locales and silently batting her eyelids at the heor…please sweety dont even try acting…you ruined the character of jessie and the whole movie for me..please consult a good doctor and get that constipation problem of your solved soon…its bloody obvious on your face throughout the movie!!
Simbu…good job man…no finger upping, no painful and unnecessary sound effects, no buildup songs…no bullshit…just plain normal acting…didnt think you could pull it off….also appreciate the way you slid in the “pakka pakka than pidikkuma?” dig at danush…couldnt resist it….couold you …you sneaky bastard!!..:)
and now Dear Gautham Menon…you are getting too self indulgent…I am not interested in your failed first love….and neither should you be…
and now Sudish about the whole “cant we be friends” crap….I’m completely with you on this one…a friend of mine once caught his girl making out with another guy and broke up with her…she came back …after an entire week…and asked him…”cant we atleast be just friends??”…he looked her in the eye…and said…”I’ve seen you butt naked and I’ve fucked you more times than I care to remember now…so no we cant be JUST friends”
The whole thing about this first love thingy is that its built to fail…too many expectations, too many emotions, too many oppositions just too much of too many things…and the failure is what makes a person stronger and gives him the strength to move on and live…been there gone through that..so it is not just random gyaan!!
and about ex-es being friends….one simple logical question….WHY???…if you dont like each other cant spend time with each other and cant take each other with all their quirks and confusions…why torture each other in the name of friendship…
to sum it up…FRIENDSHIP taken to the next level can be LOVE…it never works the other way around!!
Sorry Rishab,
Just had to remove a couple of below the belt comments you made about the filmmaker. Hope you understand man.
Thanks.
no worries sudish..:)
Gud detailed analysis of final part but I don’t agree with ur views. VTV is very nice movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Love is beautifully portrayed in a realistic way. I have seen the same in life. Awesome storytelling by Gautam especially in the end. Kudos to Gautam & Team!
I agree the confusion of the girl was the crux of the story. I felt it did not come out properly in the movie. It looked like marrying karthik was not convenient for jessy. she had to face the trouble . Their love looked like 2 good looking people being attracted to each other. had a few dates and then she felt its too risky to oppose their family(The irony is she had the guts to break the arranged marriage at the church). At the end it looked like there was no love in between them. Sudhir ur take on this
Sorry to interrupt…and I think you are missing a point here…
The turning point of the movie is when Jessie calls up Karthik and tell him to just take her away from home as the situation in her house goes beyond her control…but Karthik tries to explain his situation instead of telling her that YES BABE I’M COMING RIGHT AWAY!!!
…now come on..! when you are in love with a girl and the girl is asking you to take her away from her home, you just take her away!…instead if you start thinking about your profession at that time and discussing about it too to her at that moment then she is surely going to think you prefer your profession more than her…then the ego,agony, angst etc. will start and leads to that famous ” Heart break city” of Gautam Menon 😛
Here thatswhat happenned between Jessie and Karthik….I guess..He delayed two days there and lost her “Ever lasting love”….!
Things do happen like this…coz..when ‘Madam meets Adam he goes Mad’..ahem!
she had the guts to break the marriage in the church. she decided he is the guy.Her father did not even pressurize her. The previous fiancee who met her to convince her. that was not such a pressureso what will make her to just change it. there split was really forced.
I personally thought the way in which Gautam told the story was quite good, especially considering that he pretty much used almost the entire movie and devoted almost all the screen space and time to Karthik and Jessie. That to me worked wonderfully well, especially considering the chemistry between Simbu and Trisha.
About the ending, I felt that like Vaaranam Aayiram, somewhere VTV was also an intensely personal experience for Gautam as an individual. Maybe this was one reason why Karthik chose to make a movie with Jessie as his subject to let out his angst. What say Sudhish? Did you explore that angle at all.
My thoughts about this movie are put up at – http://bit.ly/dak3Hy Please do read, and comment on the post to let me know what you think.
Cheers…….Jai
In the Telugu version of the movie (Ye maya chesave), the ending is a happy one! The happily ever after song is NOT Karthik’s imagination. May be you would like that!
Visually a good movie….except some long and amateurish self narration from Gautam. Especially dialogues like ” One way ticket to the heart break city” etc. are too much for Simbu to handle and sounds like lifted from Mills and Boon 🙂
having said that, Hats off to Simbu for having worked his heart out in this movie especially in the Central Park bench and that basket ball court fight seen..just loved that fight..!
Another man ..na…Genius who lifted this movie to greater heights is A.R.Rehman…I’m sure that “Anbil Avan” song is going to rock in all the College day events..Just try that song in a open space with monster music systems with full volume and you will realize what I’m talking about…
Jessie character is believable and existing…but only self centred/selfish loosers blame otherwise out of disgust….
Gautam really has taste in selecting costumes of lead actors…(of course its costume designer..but atleast he has taste in selecting that person.. :P) Eye catching!!!
Finally, the whole movie to me is like a dessert dressed and topped so gorgeiously that you only want to keep looking at and forget consuming it…You know its going to be sweet anyway…!!
Also I think Gautam has carefully avoided to cast Vivek as the Camera man friend of Karthik to get rid of the “Minnale” shade on this Movie.
If Vivek would have been there then this movie is definitely ” Minnale-2″ with more comedy and would’ve been more lively…
That role is tailor made for him…I guess..
I honestly had mixed feelings about the movie. I did not like it as much while I was watching it…I thought it was boring and desperately needed a FF button to get it moving. It felt like I was living a nightmare of watching a Mills and Boons novel adapted to screen..which it probably was! A the end of the 2 hrs and then some of watching the movie I completely hated it. But after having endured the movie, I did feel that it was on some level, I liked it…specifically, the story telling, cinematography and characterization. I do not think that the director meant to insinuate that the ex-lovers are now going to be friends. May be it was the young man’s effort to seek closure…to make a movie of their love story with an ending different from what happened in real life…have Jesse watch it to point out what she could have done to make the outcome different…stayed strong and refused any alliance her father arranged…just my 2 cents.
Also, I wanted to mention-I cannot agree that friends can transform into lovers….Once you’ve seen someone as a true friend…you cannot see him/her as anything else…definitely not as your lover.
I came here looking for closure. This little annoyance at the back of my mind that something wasn’t put into place wrt VTV. I read some of the other reviews of the movie as well. But none (including yours) told me what I wanted to hear. What I wanted to know was this – would it be too wrong to conclude that Gautam Vasudev Menon actually had not clue how to end the movie and he just resorted to the first silly idea that came to him? “Okay I’ve two stars with good chemistry, I’ve A.R.Rehman, I’ve a good technical team, I’ve a good start. So far so good. But how do I end it? Hey, wait a minute! I’m making a movie about this confused romance. Why not let the hero also make a movie about HIS confused romance and let the audience figure it out for themselves?!! Plus I’ll get extra brownie points for the whole film-within-a-film idea!”
I mean, think about it. If our filmmakers were granted permission to not bother with the ending of their movies, just to shoot beautiful, romantic songs in picturesque locations, have a few clever dialogues for the hero and throw in some more masala ingredients, we’d be much better off. The number of ‘forehead slapping moments’ in our lives would go down considerably. We won’t have to put up with
1) over the top climax speeches
2) miraculous appearance of a volunteer to marry the widowed sister
3) divine intervention in the form of thunder, lightning, rain (with heavy winds that make the temple bell(e)s go nuts!)
4) the last minute police arrival to shoot/capture the baddies. etc.
I think no amount of in-depth analysis, extended arguments over blog comments etc is going to explain why VTV ended the way it did.
But you can put an end to this. You can give us the closure.
1) Please take out mobile.
2) Start text conversation with Gautam Vasudev Menon. (I’m guessing you’ve his personal number since you interviewed him and all.)
3) Somehow get him to explain to you how he conceived the ending of the movie. Get the artist to explain his art. Last resort.
4) Blog his response here.
Also could you ask him why he forgot to make comedy cameo appearance? That was the mother-of-all surprise twists in the movie!
Nandri.
PS: I was quite impressed with the movie otherwise. (minus the thoroughly unnecessary self-reference digs). Especially for putting sexy back into saris.
two things.
1) I saw Annie Hall just two days back. Clearly Gautam Menon was inspired by it. The ending is an extrapolation of what Woody Allen did with his story.
2) And this is something that I couldn’t put my finger on but someone explained it nicely to me and now I’ve come to terms with the movie.
The problem with VTV is that it takes us on this realistic journey and then throws at us this unrealistic moment – Karthik spotting Jessie in America while shooting for his film. It just doesn’t fit. There is a jump in genres – from a somewhat realistic romance to a fantasy. I mean, sure they had to meet one last time but there are a million other ways in which they could’ve got in touch with each other after the separation. What are the chances of that happening the way it was shown in the movie? The movie was almost subtle till that point. It became melodramatic after that.
Although I never fell in love (regret!), I sincerely was affected all through the movie, except the ending. The first time I saw it, I couldn’t come to terms with the movie. Then, I watched parts of the movie again and again and again…
Also, reading the comments of true lovers impacted by their love made me come to terms with it. I have not understood girls as much as others who fell in love have, but I think women like Jessie who are fickle and irresolute should not even fall in love. It only destroyed Karthik’s true love. Hats off because he was strong and resolute till the end go fall in love, fight her family, get rejected, and finally get shafted by her in the end. I really was pissed off at Jessie as we all felt the pain of Karthik.
I wish true lovers to stand and be resolute because as Karthik says you only get one chance and make sure it counts.
Great movie.
Thanks.
Sm surprised to know it’s a 7.5 from you for the movie. A complete mushy flick! I liked the way gautham took us thro the movie that had no storyline. Can imagine how hard it must have been to write the script. But I strongly feel it’s a take from his personal life, very real incidents very natural sequence of events and romance. But who cares. A good mix of songs, beautiful locales, good looking heroine, and a feel good movie like this is an absolute paisa vasool for me. And the climax gets a full score of 10 from me 🙂
one simple doubt.. Did simbu have the script in place when he was shooting in Brooklyn bridge? if so what was the ending there?. or did he change the story of his movie just coz he saw trisha der in the bridge.. or is he that one of the directors who has come to US without a script and deciding the next scene on the fly?
actually the park scene(imagination)was the script of simbu .thats why he imagined in the same way as in his
script.
Happened to me. Kinda like a guy. He was madly in love. Didn’t love him enuf to ditch my family. Married to another guy. Happily married. Ex mailed. Now we are friends. He still feels bad after 5 yrs.
To me, love between Jessie and Karthik was totally one sided. Jessie never took it too seriously, even when she walked out of the church and when Karthik came to meet her in secret at her home. She was confused all the time. She thought for a span that she was in love but was not and I won’t blame her, some girls are like that. So in my opinion it was not tough for her to come to Karthik’s premier and later tell him to move on. That’s how she took the whole thing, lightly. In other words, she was sweet enough to show up for a last time but ultimately she is a bitch. Gautam just tried to make her look a bit less of a bitch, but failed.