Aadhavan

Director: K S Ravikumar
Music: Harris Jeyaraj
Cast: Suriya, Nayanthara, Murali, Vadivelu, Sayaji Shinde

It would be apt to start on the thread left in the previous review: Comedy Tracks. What would we do without them? And what our so called Mass Masala Entertainers would do if there was legislation restricting these tracks?

There are films with comedy tracks running as separate strands unlinked to the main story. Often times the main protagonists won’t even know that there’s a comedian interrupting their story. This does not take much effort from the director or screenwriter’s point of view. They can simply write a main script without any other consideration and later insert the comedy relief wherever necessary. There were times when a separate writer is commissioned to pen the comedy tracks. Perhaps this is still being practiced.

The other, perhaps much harder, technique is to try to blend comedy within the main narration. In here, the protagonist knows the comedian or the protagonist themselves work with the designated comedian to evoke laughter in the movie halls. This is considered harder work because the main narration is usually the serious one and blending jokes within would be risky. It requires experienced directors to employ this.

K S Ravikumar certainly is one of the highly experienced and it is a known fact that comedy comes naturally to him. It is quite evident in Aadhavan that has probably one of the best utilised roles for Vadivelu. Thanks to his presence, you almost fail to notice that there is something serious going on in the main story. Even if you did notice, you sincerely hope it turns out comical to enable Vadivelu or other assigned comedians in the film to poke fun at it. Surely enough there are plenty of such opportunities.

Funnily, there are even some unintended moments of laughter in the narration. When the ambitious but botched up job of Suriya as a child is realised, when Saroja Devi in her squeaky voice delivers some melodramatic lines in feigned sincerity, or when the father cries out to his son from within a car suspended in the air by a crane. The serious attempts turn into funny moments.

Neither the director or the producer of the film would be really bothered about how the audience respond to these scenes as long as some form of entertainment is realised in the halls. The audience though won’t be complaining about Suriya or K S Ravikumar. They are, however, going to praise Vadivelu on his ability to evoke laughter by merely standing in the frame. Why do we bother that we don’t care much about the characters and the consequences? In an ironic sense, the rules of Mass Masala Entertainer dictates that the audience shouldn’t be ‘disturbed’ much emotionally and only ‘entertained’. This requirement is achieved in ample quantities in Aadhavan. So why bother?

And finally, with a huge sigh of relief, may god bless the person who invented comedy tracks!