It is hardly a week that a trendsetting thriller movie hit the silver screen and gaining responses among the public and media with increased shows in theatres, there is another one that has hit the screen with a solid screenplay that a movie lover can’t afford to miss. It’s time to be proud that Tamil cinema is moving towards greater heights that one couldn’t even imagine.

Aarohanam - means the ascending of swaras in carnatic music, the movie does cent percent justice to its title. It is a simple one-liner story, let’s say  it starts from a point A and travel towards end point B in a very straight line, it has no twists and turns. What really makes it outstanding is its screenplay and characterization. Insight about each character in the movie is brilliantly handled in screenplay which makes the characters interesting and in few scenes it is vice versa (applies to all scenes that Jaya Prakash appears). The movie revolves around one character Nirmala - lived by Viji .What an energetic role, it has ample scope of acting and the actress has ensured every single cell in her has lived as Nirmala.

The other roles including the father, son, and daughter and supporting neighborhood are sharply carved, what makes you feel the perfection is the beggar’s role that is shown in initial scenes as mere beggar who is affectionate to Nirmala and later in flashback scenes showing how he is associated with the family. All characters are well shaped. Though Jaya Prakash doesn’t add anything to the story his acting makes his role interesting. K's background scoring is good and Thappattam song is a perfect club song and very well canned, it will have the viewers laugh and enjoy - a feel good one. One area where the director could have looked in is, the movie had many dialogues in English which would not reach a common man who doesn’t know the language especially in B and C centres.

The remarkable thing about the movie is it handles a subject that Tamil cinema had witnessed in “n" number of movies - bipolar disorder (mental illness) but this time, for the first time, this is the movie that has come out with a positive note on it rather being a psycho/crime thriller. The team deserves a better response from the public, media and industry as a whole. We have two more months to go for the year end, but still one can strongly bet this will be one of the best three movies of the year.

When the whole theatre gave a loud applause once the movie ended, as a fan of Tamil Cinema all I had in me was one honest question to the director ,

"Lady, where were you all these years???”

Regards,

Lakshmi Kanthan