CHANDAMAMA MOVIE REVIEW

People say so much about novelists. A dead wise man, probably a novelist too, once said how creative, aware and engaging a novelist and his works should be. Chandhamama aka Santhanakrishnan (Karunas) is a novelist too, but without even the smallest trace of any such characteristics.

In fact his literary works kill people or at least achieve in making them very sick. Chandhamama, directed by Radhakrishnan, narrates how this poorly skilled writer becomes a famous and a favourite one. The story is about what takes him to become a good writer and to what extent this eccentric writer goes to achieve what he intends to. The other ingredients in the film include a love angle with a young beautiful woman (Shweta Basu), parents sentiment, passion, a mysterious past and more melodrama.

When people come for a movie with Karunas in the lead, they look for comedy. But Chandhamama is full of melodrama. Even at places where humour is attempted the completely non-synchronous melancholic BG scores achieve in bringing up the melodrama back in full flow.

The overall performances are noteworthy. In fact, the leading lady, Shweta Basu is impressive and shows lot of promise. Karunas, Ilavarasu, MS Baskar and all others are barely challenged at their task. But the story and the screenplay make the performances uninteresting.

To book an author for his work and the court ordering him to clean all the Mahatma Gandhi statues in the state as punishment is not something the audience is expected to tolerate. Then there are the song sequences, which are unromantic and forgettable, especially the song ‘Yarodi’, in which Karunas’s efforts at dancing go invain.

Srikanth Deva’s melodies are good but the BGMs are repetitive and vintage. The cinematography is adequately good.

On the whole an ordinary effort, delivering nothing new or entertaining to the audience.