MARYAN MOVIE REVIEW

Ace ad filmmaker Bharathbala makes his Tamil feature film debut with Maryan, which sees the return of Dhanush to Tamil films after a sizable hiatus post 3. With the best possible technical crew assisting the director, Maryan comes with the promise of delivering great music and visuals. Maryan also continues the recent love affair that Tamil cinema seems to be having with the state’s coastal areas.

The trailer gave us the perfect gist of the tale with elements like love, separation, struggle, survival and hope being the pivotal emotions. We have to admit that the movie is exactly what the trailer led us to believe.

Maryan is a spirited young man who shares a deep bond with the sea and calls himself the ‘Prince of the Ocean’ as that is where he plies his trade and earns his livelihood in an adventurous manner. Circumstances surrounding his lady love Panimalar, force him to seek employment as a construction worker in Sudan. Just as he is about to return home, things take a turn for the worse.

Will the power of Maryan’s love for Panimalar cross geographical boundaries and prove to be his elixir?

The movie’s pace is leisurely all the way and the director might have deliberately slowed it down for the audience to feel the intensity of the emotions longer. The first half is mostly used to set up the deep bond between Maryan and Panimalar and whether this bond can withstand all the pain and suffering, is what the second half narrates.

Marc Koninckx’s visuals are poetic and out-of-this-world as he has fully exploited the wide visual canvas that Bharathbala has offered him. You might be reminded of Kadal and Neerparavai though, as the setting is the same.

A.R.Rahman has used the tunes of the magical ‘Enga Pona Raasa’ and ‘Kadal Raasa Naan’ prominently as part of the movie’s background score and this will resonate in your heart, long after the show is over. The wizard has brought his A-Game for the movie’s BGM score. His songs for the movie need no further mention but their visual treatment is mostly similar due to the repetitive situations and surroundings.

Dhanush has mastered pain and suffering on screen and he has apparently gone through an extraordinary physical struggle for the second half. His emotional prowess is displayed in the scenes when he mourns his dear friend’s loss, during his lovelorn phone calls with Panimalar and when he overcomes his starvation with an imaginary feast of seafood. When he bursts out and expresses how workers such as him are impoverished and helpless, you can feel his agony. Expect more awards to knock at the star’s doorstep.

His looks don’t have continuity at times and his hairstyle undergoes a noticeable change even within the same scene. The long production duration of Maryan shows.

Parvathy Menon is all oomph and looks really attractive in authentic native costumes. She is a terrific actress and shows her emoting range in Maryan. Her chemistry with Dhanush is really intimate and adds a lot of depth to the movie.

Among the support actors, Appukutty and Jagan have their moments as Maryan’s close friends while Uma Riyaz Khan is too loud and boisterous. The African villains are over-the-top and their modus operandi isn’t too logical and reasonable.

Ultimately, there is no questioning the crew’s hard work and the lead cast’s outstanding work. Maryan might not appeal to the common man seeking unadulterated entertainment but it is worth a trip to the theater nevertheless, for the very reasons mentioned above.