MEGHA MOVIE REVIEW

Megha, lyrically titled and promoted as an Ilayaraja Festival aptly features the legend’s Uravugal Thodarkadhai and Puthampudu Kaalai numbers in the film, the latter, though appeared in the audio tracks of Alaigal Oyvadhillai, did not find itself in the film.

Megha, the debut directorial vehicle of Karthick Rishi, starts off intriguingly in a hospital at wee hours with a badly injured hero Ashwin entering the premises. The film then takes off in its journey juxtaposing past and present events culminating in the hospital.
 
Karthick Rishi poetically names his lead characters as Meghavathy and Mugilan (meaning clouds) and suitably so rain forms an essential character in the film in crucial scenes. And Gurudev’s camera captures the beauty of rain in its majestic splendor which becomes the major highlight of the film. Karthik Rishi’s product is further strengthened by Ilayaraja’s scores and background tracks.

However, the director scrambles to tilt these two major positives to his story’s favor. Megha also wobbles weakly between the genres of romance and thriller resulting in a neither here nor there feeling for the viewer.

A hero as a ballistics expert in the Forensic Science Department is quite new to Tamil cinema but this interesting professional expertise has not been put much into use in the story.

The weakest link in the film is its romantic track. Although love at first sight is not something that is new to the Tamil audience, the implausibility in these scenes and the excessive cheesy dialogues between the lead pair do not help the viewer get connected with Karthik Rishi’s product. The film appears to be caught in a kind of time warp in most scenes.

Heroine Srushti on whose character the entire film hinges upon, does little to bring in life to her role. A smart looking Ashwin is very earnest but will have to tighten up during the heavy duty emotional scenes.

Characterization is not all that strong which dilutes the film further. There is no valid explanation about the purpose of character Mani played by Sasikumar who surfaces and vanishes abruptly. Supporting cast like Jayaprakash, Naren, Y Gee Mahendra, Vijaykumar, Meera Krishnan and Ravi Prakash do their parts well bringing in their years of experience onto the table. But the purpose of the character of Y Gee Mahendra remains ambiguous. Angana Roy as Thulasi is refreshing but she has the same emotion for all the scenes.

On and off there appear a few cheery moments which have some kind of chutzpah in them like the ones when Ashwin proposes to Srushti in her house and his interactions with his photographer friend. Unfortunately, they are few and far between.