So you all know what an FRS is right? Right?
We would like to start by wishing all our readers a very Happy New Year, let’s just hope there are less movies with narration this year.
-10: Narration, there goes our new year wish, all the best to us. This is not a complex story, as in, this is just another village vs village story and there are at least 3000 ways to tell this without having to have narration.
Since we are blog that does not just raise questions but also provides solutions: makers can actually name the movies with the same premise so that audience can directly connect
-5: Narration by Vidarth, who is kind of like the principal antagonist, beginning with his narration almost feels right as the movie progresses, but then this narration comes to nothing and his narration is also not followed through.
I wish to start a new business by sending a daily whatsapp/text reminders to directors and writers on set, it would just read the following.
Daily Reminder: People are not dumb.
That seems like a good segue to our next point
-50: Twins
If you thought that the village vs village was a done to death in Tamil cinema then you are in store for another repetitive story jumping off point- separated twins.
It doesn’t bother us that Anbarivu picks up familiar themes, it only bothers us that the director is brazen with the- “yeah yeah, we know you have seen these movies before, but did it have Hip Hop in them?”
Yes Hip Hop is the differentiating factor in the film, but not always differentiating factors are good. And this time he comes in twos.
-300: Napoleon plays a quote-unquote majestic village headman, where people ‘respect’ him for what he is, his weekend hobby is to fight in riots with neighboring village folk.
There is undeniably a caste angle here and an intent to show that caste violence is a sickening thing and slip in a message about equality, but how does the director think that a two hour 45 min film which glorifies such violence for two hours and 20 mins expect us to believe that such a transformation can happen in the last 25 mins?
Hehe, it can, possibly with powerful filmmaking. Run time is not an indicator of impact, but here it seems almost like a casual turn the movie takes towards the end.
Also the Napoleon character is applauded in the end, because he ‘accepts’ that he was wrong etc. Boss he must also be in Jail, so must the Anbu character.
-120: Generic Maduraikarans: funny like one specific thing becomes relatively mainstream it completely loses its specificity, ever since Maduraikaranisms were taken up as major characters in tamil films, they have ever since been reduced to stereotypes who spout words like Sambavam, Rathabhoomi etc
Tiring.
-60: Ragging in Canada university
-23: Hero’s dad becomes president of IDFC or something in Canada and this is celebrated by Canadians on TVs and billboards etc
-101: Hero gets slow motion entry because he is hero and most of the village cheer him because he is hero, do educate us city types, do villages like these exist?
Also village celebrates hero’s birthday with Jallikattu, of course there was going to be Jallikattu in this movie
+45: Murattu Kaalai Ex Machina
If you know, you know
-25: Heroine thinks that all foreigners are in open relationships, hero thinks that all village love is true and pyoor etc, so he must marry a pucca tamil girl etc
+56: Irritation as a plot propulsion device
Somewhere I feel that the director is very perceptive, he understands that the material at hand can bring about much irritation to the audience, so much so that he incorporates this as a theme
Arivu irritates his thatha in the village
Anbu irritates his appa in Canada
So yeah, that’s about it.
-20.9: Delayed Thaai Paasam Gratification + with Amma song
-59: Movie is confused max, it believes that it needs to be a commercial film and hence needs to add commercial elements but also realized that these commercial elements are also regressive, so movie cannot make up it’s mind, so it makes one of the twins a woke reformer (something of the sort)
+30: But I would also like to come clean, that on a Saturday with an impending lockdown, the second half of this movie was quite calming even though the first half (my division not the movie’s) was quite aggravating.
The second half gives chance for all the characters that were introduced to come together and in their own ways complete their respective arc. It’s not the most organic of stories but somehow seemed “well-set”, Anbarivu also benefits from a good supporting cast who can sell this story and make up for whatever is lost by the casting of the leads.
And in this Vidarth really was interesting.
-87: It’s not a village movie unless there is a foreign corporate power trying to take over the lands of the people
Etc
Yeah I know.
Subam
Team FRS
Anbarivu is now streaming on Disney+Hotstar
The Lowly Laureate 