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Raghu Thatha Movie Review: The opening credits of writer Suman Kumar’s directorial debut is an interesting start. It traces a few pages of India’s legislature landmarks through newspaper cuttings and gives us insights into the different issues that would be discussed in the Keerthy Suresh-starrer. And like clockwork, every one of those headlines in the newspaper becomes a conversation between the characters in the film. If one topic becomes the reason for the title, then another is a passing line about women and their dreams. If one topic is about Hindi imposition, then another is a reference to the ugly head of patriarchy. Raghu Thatha is like flipping through the newspaper to read just the headlines. Even if the film doesn’t delve too deep into the various issues it takes up, it gives us enough cliff-notes to get the idea.
Raghu Thatha is set in the 1970s, and the protagonist Kayalvizhi Pandian (an effective Keerthy Suresh) is a feminist, writer, and bank employee. She fiercely opposes the opening of a Hindi Sabha in her town of Valluvanpettai. Supported by her rebellious grandfather Raghothaman (MS Bhaskar), Kayalvizhi continues her crusade against the imposition of Hindi in society, and the imposition of marriage on her. But Kayalvizhi finds herself in a conundrum that threatens everything she stands for. While this does sound like a film, straight out of the K Balachander textbook, Suman and his team of writers, add quirky characters played by convincing actors, outlandish situations, and dish out a screwball comedy. Take, for instance, a doctor who smokes telling a fairly no-vice vayasaanavan (elder person) that he has cancer. The patient’s reactions and the song that follows soon after are what happens when seemingly innocuous characters are placed in oddball situations. Raghu Thatha aims to do a lot of this but doesn’t always work because there is many a slip between the joke and the laugh.
Raghu Thatha is held together by the earnestness of Keerthy Suresh and the downright whimsical and effectively caricaturish performance of Ravindra Vijay, who plays Kayalvizhi’s suitor, Selvan. Undoubtedly, Selvan is one of the most fun characters recently, and Ravindra plays it to the gallery. On the other hand, Kayalvizhi is bound by the limits of having strict moral values and yet manages to be a hoot in situations that make her bend those rules. The film is a lot of fun when it focusses on the blossoming love story between Kayalvizhi and Selvan. While the proverbial twist in the tale is thrust upon us, it is slightly unfortunate that the ‘twist’ isn’t exactly a twist because we are left with visible clues about what is going to happen. It is no fun to know what is going to happen in a film like Raghu Thatha, which elicits a lot of laughs every single time it resorts to clever subversion.
Despite Sean Roldan dialling up the quirkiness factor with his music, and the scenes setting the stage right, the jokes are hit-and-miss. It is slightly disappointing that despite earnest performances from Rajeev Ravindranathan, Devadarshini, Chu Khoy Sheng, and Ismath Banu, the film doesn’t give them enough. They dial up the fun whenever they appear on screen, but Raghu Thatha needs more of them, and less of the roundabout way of reaching the finale where Kayalvizhi has a meltdown. It takes such a long time to get there that her speech falls flat despite everything before that working in favour of the film. The last act is of the chaotic funny type, and that is the film’s strong suit too. Every scene involving the motley group of characters is a hoot, and you almost miss this controlled chaos in many of the previous scenes. But it becomes a classic case of too little too late.
Coming to the central theme of Hindi imposition, the film doesn’t do enough justice to it either. However, the film, with its sharp dialogues, works as a commentary on patriarchy and how the liberal nature of many is just a means to an end. Even before reaching the showdown, the film does a decent job of asking these questions. However, they don’t feel like tough holding-the-collar questions, but gentle raps on the knuckles. The entire angle of the imposition feels out of place in the film because of the lack of exploration. The issues remain on a very superficial level, and it doesn’t allow us to throw our weights behind Kayalvizhi and Raghu Thatha’s clarion call for fighting against the imposition of Hindi. Instead, if they asked us to join them in the fight against patriarchy, a lot of us might just do it because… even today, many are liberals just as a means to an end.
Raghu Thatha Movie Cast: Keerthy Suresh, Ravindra Vijay, MS Bhaskar, Anandsami
Raghu Thatha Movie Director: Suman Kumar
Raghu Thatha Movie Rating: 2.5
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