Joker (Tamil, 2016)

It takes a lot of guts from the writer, Raju Murugan as well as the producer, Dream Warrior Pictures, to venture into making such a film in a climate as touchy as the one prevalent in India right now. The film traverses multiple themes ranging from love to redemption, bravery to mercy, societal empathy to apathy, euthanasia to open-defecation and so on.

The way the film builds up to its gut-wrenching emotional core is admirable. The comic instances followed by a very pleasant courting & acceptance sequence are extremely impacting. Such a path shows the work that must have gone behind writing the screenplay for the film as without the emotional core, the film would have just been another political satire with few whistle-worthy dialogues.

Guru Somasundaram plays the lead role with aplomb and it is refreshing to see him in a major role after Aaranya Kaandam. It is refreshing to see a protagonist so in tune with the character and not jut out from the plot for the sake of heroism. Across his multiple looks, Guru shows why he is one the best performers that Tamizh Cinema possesses. Ramya Pandian who plays the role of Mallika is fantastic during the phase when Guru woos her. The confidence she radiates and the subtle changes in reactions she brings out paint a wonderful picture that words cannot express.

Ramasamy (who plays Ponnunjal) and Gayathri Krishna (who plays Isai) are a riot when they pay heed to the President’s orders implicitly. While Gayathri is the resident geek & social-media expert, it is Ramasamy who gets some heavy dialogues and scores with aplomb. The loudest cheer was when he casually remarks, “நீங்க எங்க ப்ரெசிடெண்ட்கு சகாயம் பண்ண வேண்டாம், சகாயம் மாறி நடந்துக்கிட்டா போதும்”.

Sean Roldan’s fabulous songs played a vital part in generating the hype for the film. Throughout the film his score (though manipulative on few occasions) and lyric-rich songs add value to the proceedings. ‘Chellamma’ and ‘Jasmine-u’ songs are particularly pleasing on screen.

Raju Murugan’s strength lies in his dialogues which he showed in Cuckoo. In a political background, his journalistic background comes to the fore as he hits the nail on the head with most of his dialogues. As a director too he must be appreciated for not aiming to manipulate emotions by showing his lady love under stress.

There is always a thin line between preaching to the audience and explaining to the audience. While the informed may find the climactic monologue from Ramasamy to be preachy, Raju Murugan’s focus seems to be more on the uninformed and has led to critics having to dutifully call out the preachiness.