An engaging, if problematic, tale of a kadhal mannan type who can’t help but fall in love, Gemini Ganesanum Suruli Rajanum is what one gets when a mainstream hero (Atharvaa Murali) decides to try out comedy. Odam Ilavarasu directs this part-spoof, part–romantic comedy.
Every time Gemini Ganesan (Atharvaa) falls in love, purple butterflies fly out of his chest. This happens many, many times. It’s quirky, it’s fun. It’s one of the few likeable things about this film.
***
Gemini Ganesanum Suruli Rajanum doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s fine. What’s not fine is that it doesn’t take women seriously either.
The women who populate Gemini Ganesan’s universe – Regina Cassandra as Lavanya, Aaditi Pohankar as Saroja Devi, and Pranitha Subhash as Pooja – are portrayed as brainless, makeup loving extra-terrestrials. Having stuck them in such diminished roles, the director seems to suggest that they aren’t worthy of the hero’s love.
And so, they end up pining after the immature hero who “likes romance, but hates marriage”.
Then there’s the social-service madam (Aishwarya Rajesh) with her serious-person glasses and I-love-children sttitude. Aishwarya Rajesh tries to be the sole fount of good sense in a film filled with nonsense. But even that is lost when she is made to laugh uncontrollably at Gemini’s unfunny jokes.
***
Imman makes vibrant, if repetitive, music full of violin flourishes and lively little piano interludes. It makes the film seem somehow more interesting than it actually is.
Once the music ends, we’re back to Gemini’s sob stories about life as an inveterate playboy.
***
Atharvaa is an apt choice for the role. The actor looks like the soul of insincerity, a far cry away from his Paradesi image. It makes sense that girls are attracted to him. But nothing in his character or actions justifies the level of devotion and love he gets in the film.
Perhaps fearful of scathing reviews, Odam Ilavarasu tacks on a scathing rant against his own hero. But it’s an afterthought that comes too late to have any impact.
In the end, the unrepentant hero (richer and with more facial hair) gets exactly what he wants. There’s no redemption, no development in his character arc, and fittingly, no sense of an ending.
Recommended
Odam Ilavarasu’s moral here is that men can get around the emotional damage they inflict just by inviting past lovers to their marriage. Women, on the other hand, get immortalised in tasteless Santhanam/Soori jokes for years to come, if they so much as have second thoughts about a relationship.
Woven into the narrative is the suggestion that rejected women are somehow to blame for their misfortune.
Double standards, yes. It’s 2017, yes. But some of our film directors, sadly, aren’t aware.
*****
The Gemini Ganesanum Suruli Rajanum review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.