Amara Kaaviyam

My review: Amara Kaaviyam

After his impressive debut with "Naan", Jeeva Shankar seems to lost a bit of steam with his second movie, "Amara Kaaviyam". Though the story is nothing new, it could have been spruced up with a better taut screenplay. But Shankar doesn't seem to have any grip on the screenplay which he allows to meander loosely, as result the impact the movie ought to have created fizzles out. The problem lies not only in the screenplay but also his direction, which somehow fails to engage the viewers. A filmmaker like Selvaraghavan could have had a field day with a story like this. 

"Amara Kaaviyam" is a routine teenage love story with a twist in the end which seems more forced into the narrative rather than the story coming to its conclusion. Movie for the majority of its running time lacks substance and feel artificial. Except for couple of touches here and there like the mature handling of teenage love by the parents of both side and a cop for once who is sensible and practical rather than the Tamil movie caricature, by and large movie doesn't boast of many scenes which could move you emotionally. Even the climatic portions that could have worked out terrifically gets bogged down by the insufficient emotionally connecting moments in the movie up-till that point. 

Sathya is good as the protagonist, but the scarcity of emotional and histrionic repertoire shows. Dove eyed Mia is a good find for Tamil cinema. She emotes well and has a good future. Movie has a largely unknown support cast but by and large they all have done terrific jobs themselves. Why Thambi Ramaiah, only the director and Ramaiah, himself can answer.   

Movie's USP is its music and Ghibran has once again done excellent job with it. All the five songs in the album are good to hear and pictured well by the director who also couples up as the movie's cinematographer. However, Ghibran's background score is jarring at many places.

On the whole, after watching this movie only thought that comes into one's mind is that potential for a great romantic drama is been wasted. 

Bottomline: Neither immortal nor a masterpiece. 

2.5/5