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‘Soorarai Pottru’ Movie Review: Suriya’s Beating-The-Odds Film Is Both Moving And Perplexing

The film, currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, has powerful performances from Suriya, Aparna Balamurali and Urvashi but suffers from a lack of depth in its core conflict.
Suriya in a still from 'Soorarai Pottru'.
Screenshot from YouTube
Suriya in a still from 'Soorarai Pottru'.

SOME SPOILERS BELOW

Can I begin with an anecdote? Many years ago, I was a junior copywriter at a small ad agency. My creative director and I were trading stories. He was talking about the various ideas he had had and how they were turned down by the powers that be, only to be re-purposed for a different brand by other people. The usual tales, these. Half truths. Half myths. Half self-pity. Half self-aggrandizing.

This turned into a session where we had to one-up the other’s idea. A game. I had an idea for a local TN brand: A 15-minute short film, divided further into 10 or so shorter sequences, spliced in between the famous mega serials of Tamil television. In essence, give the viewers who were watching these serials another, unexpected serial in between. An ad as a film?

A few years later, Air Deccan did a version of this with a long, heartwarming ad about an old man travelling by air for the first time. I wasn’t involved. And I know that my then-boss wasn’t. It was just an idea of its time. I bring this up here because, well, self-pity and self-aggrandizing are things old writers do.

Sudha Kongara’s Soorarai Pottru feels like an idea of its time. And a similar pity-aggrandizement project. We must look in awe at this hero, this Sooran, and sing his praises. And also feel his pain, pour salve over that bruised soul. Trade war stories.

The film—not a biopic but not a non-biopic, if one could call it that—is loosely based on the book Simply Fly, by Air Deccan founder Capt GR Gopinath (Retd) and borrows from other aviation stories and myths. The result is 2 hours 20 odd minutes of a sometimes moving, sometimes perplexing film.

Soorarai Pottru, co-written and directed by Sudha Kongara, and produced by Suriya, stars Aparna Balamurali, Urvashi, Suriya, Mohan Babu, Prasanna Vivek, Paresh Rawal, Krishnakumar and others. It features music by G.V. Prakash Kumar, and was shot by Niketh. The screenplay was written by Shalini Ushadevi and Sudha Kongara. The film, after many delays and half-starts, released on streaming platform Amazon Prime Video two days ahead of Deepavali.

We know the genre of Soorarai Pottru: it’s the story of a man who beats the odds. We know what these odds usually are. There is a personal ambition that is also aligned with larger good. But there are powerful people working against the hero, accompanied by plenty of bad luck. There are personal and financial struggles, until about 2 hours and 15 minutes into the run time. And then the cat lands feet first, light and luck aligns and we have the man flying high.

The genre restrictions set out the template. What you do within that template is what makes a film, and a filmmaker.

Soorarai Pottru tells us the story of Nedumaaran Rajangam (Suriya), or Maara. He is an air-force pilot who quits the force to start a low-cost airline. He dreams of the day Indians from all classes across the country can afford to take a flight. This dream of his is a result of the impact of his father—a socialist school teacher in a small village (Poo Ram as Rajangam).

We see Maara as the archetypal angry young man. In one scene, frustrated with his father’s slow and passive demands to get a train to stop in their small town of Sholavandhan, Maara and his friends resort to a rail-roko protest. In the process, Kaali (Kaali Venkat), Maara’s friend, is hurt badly. This enrages Rajangam and leads to a battle between father and son. Pechi (Urvashi) attempts to calm things down. But the men have stronger egos, leading to what may be a permanent rift.

This is reflected back later in the film, in a sequence which allows Urvashi’s character to really come into her own. We see Pechi through most of the film as a calm, docile woman. But there is a certain spark. We see that first when she proudly proclaims to Kaali that she’s studied till class 3, and after all, is the teacher’s wife. That pride, that strength, that self-respect comes forth as anger in another pivotal scene when Maara makes his long, delayed return home. For a man raised by such parents, is it any wonder that Maara of the film is the man he is?

The love angle, for there has to be one, has some surprises in it. It’s not a Tamil cinema first, but the girl is on her way to see the groom in a reversal of standard custom. But right now, all that matters to her is the plate of biryani in her hand. Even as family and friends are debating the right and wrong and norms. A lovely place to insert a little jab at middle-class maamas.

And that’s how Sundari a.ka. Bommi (Aparna Balamurali) meets Maara. It’s definite sparks at first sight, but this little parental-assent-enabled romance is drawn out a little. A meet-cute, measures of each other taken, personal ambitions discussed, and a bit of a tease to a larger romance.

And then they get married in a Tamil Self-Respect Wedding ceremony.

Well done.

Is this a first in a mainstream film with a big star?

A digression:

Living Smile Vidya’s book, Naan Vidya, about her life and aspirations, was turned into the award-winning Kannada film, Naan Avanu Alla, Avalu (I am not he, I am she). But in the process, the film turned a Dalit, anti-caste, trans-rights activist into an upper-caste person, turning some of the commentary in the book redundant.

Flipping that, Soorarai Pottru has taken what’s largely the life of an upper-caste man and turned it into a sort of anti-caste manifesto. There are some gaps, of course. But in large parts, the messaging here is: let’s break caste barriers.

Aparna Balamurali as Sundari a.k.a Bommi owns her role. Even when she’s not on screen, we have no doubt she’s helping push Maara and his ambition forward. Before they get married, Bommi lays down three conditions: their personal ambitions will not be put aside for the sake of the other. We know that the man never has to worry about it, and so this is as much assurance for her as it is for him. Family is important, and at no point will he give up on that in his pursuit of success. Finally, there’s no his money or her money. There’s their money.

A woman with her own ambitions and needs, and who is unafraid of laying it out in a kind of pre-nuptial agreement, as befits a marriage that began with Periyar’s Self-Respect wedding ceremony. But that doesn’t mean their relationship is cold and rational. Bommi stands up for herself, and feeds him (because Maara gets cranky when he is hungry. And because that’s what Pechi has done all her life) when he is at his wit’s end. And when he hesitantly, painfully, asks her for a loan, she reminds him of their pre-nup. It’s their money.

Back from the digression, and the wedding, Maara must now go against the biggies—Paresh Goswami (Paresh Rawal trying to channel Jackie Shroff of Bigil, and sanitising his hands after every out-of-class/caste handshake) as the founder of Jaz Airways, and a man who goes from being Maara’s hero to villain in double-quick time, Prakash Babu (Prakash Belawadi) as the founder of a venture capital firm who may not be as friendly as we think. And various ministers, bureaucrats, competitors and sometimes Maara’s own pilots. At every hurdle, Maara runs to his sanctuary, the rooftop of his house, and screams wildly. At which point, Bommi will come feed him and make him feel better.

“He’s running on fumes here, adrenaline and ambition the only thing holding him together. It works, this performance of Suriya’s”

Soorarai Potru is set in the early 2000s. The film’s internal storyline refers to the dates constantly. The old numbering system for vehicle registration changed around the early 90s. MDA and TMC became TN-01 and so on. By the late 90s and early 2000s, it was rare to see those old numbers in the wild. But throughout the film, we see these Ambassadors with the old number plates. And in the scene where Maara goes to Bommi’s bakery, there’s a wall-painted ad for Poppins. But just a few scenes earlier, we see a poster of Mani Ratnam’s Alai Payuthe on a wall. Were the makers confused about the era in which the story is set in? Saving grace: The old facade and logo of the Drive In Woodlands.

The core conflict is the weakest bit of Soorarai Pottru. We know what the genre template demands that the hero must go through to win. Is it then a bit too much to ask that the path to that win be a bit more demanding? The scenes where Maara has to go against an uncaring bureaucracy are just a bit too pat, and no different from what we have seen in many other films. But then, these scenes allow Suriya to flex his acting muscles. We see him angry, frustrated, cautiously optimistic, crying. He’s running on fumes here, adrenaline and ambition the only thing holding him together. It works, this performance of Suriya’s.

There’s a little too much of the evil villain in Paresh Rawal. He’s almost a caricature, especially when GV Prakash’s score gives him minor ominous tones. This is a man driven by class and creature comfort. He even dislikes his own chauffeur dreaming about flying. And in continuation of recent Tamil cinema tropes (and Suriya’s own outings in films such as Singam 3, Kaappan, and even NGK), the rich, powerful, Hindi-speaking capitalist is the villain of the piece. The only standout moment, in this portrayal, for me, was when he declares nonchalantly: “You may own the ticket my friend, but I own the airline.” Delivered with style, and so casually. It held up what was otherwise a unidimensional character.

To be fair, I did not expect the “twist” that is the character played by Prakash Belawadi. However, after all that, the standard evil-rich-man-as-villain stereotypes kick in. One man who seems to have everybody in his corner against the man who will one day destroy him.

The lack of effective villains shows up particularly because on the other side, we have strong, heavy emotions. Maara and Rajangam, his father, and their relationship. Maara vs Naidu, his commanding officer in the air force. Maara and Pechi. Even Maara’s relationship with his two friends, Seby and Che (Prasanna Vivek and Krishnakumar) and Maara’s extended family of Karunas and Kaali Venkat.

Those moments where Maara lives out his dreams and frustrations with the people around him make the film.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.