SONNA PURIYADHU MOVIE REVIEW

Just about a month or so after the release and subsequent success of Thillu Mullu, Shiva is back to delight his fans with another of his typical comedy movies. The core team of Sonna Puriyathu, comprising director Krishnan Jayaraj, cinematographer Saravanan and music director Yathish Mahadev are new and Shiva felt happy introducing them to the industry.

Pre-release, the Sonna Puriyathu (SP) team had promised a light hearted entertainer which had no lofty intentions of delivering serious messages to society.

In SP, Shiva plays a unique dubbing artist who loathes marriage and leads a happy-go-lucky existence with his buddies. Buying a posh Volkswagen vehicle is his only motto in life for some trivial reason. But like 99% of other Indian movies, our hero has to fall in love with a girl and walk hand-in-hand with her, before the end credits roll.

Here, the romance isn’t the conventional ‘boy chases girl’ kind, but one which is kick-started by Shiva’s mother through a traditional marriage alliance.

Shiva oozes charm and makes us smile for whatever he does on screen. Such is his charisma! The scenes showing Shiva dubbing for Chinese action films along with his friend, are truly hilarious. He is in full flow in these scenes and even dubs for a little ‘monkey romance’ episode. The little references to Chennai 28 and Thamizh Padam are nice nostalgic trips down memory lane. Shiva’s ‘poker-faced’ dialog delivery style is his USP and his directors know it all too well. Also, watch out for his ‘Rosa Hai Dosa Hai’ Hindi song.

Vasundhara Kashyap has a sizable role and pulls it off pretty well. She must be hoping that SP proves to be a stepping stone for her career as a lead actress.

The actors who play the friends do a neat job with the fat young man given prominence. Sam Anderson’s cameo will surely leave you laughing. Such is his dancing prowess.

Vathsala Rajagopal as the tech-savvy Ipad toting grandmother gets a few entertaining lines while Mano Bala plays another of his quintessential roles. Meera Krishnan is another typical Tamil cinema mom who wants her son to get married at any cost. Gangai Amaran and Aarthi also do their parts in little cameos.

In all, though Sonna Puriyathu really peters out towards the end, if you are a fan of Shiva’s brand of comedy, it might just be the movie for you this weekend.