The main thing about this movie is its grandeur and opulence. Rich sets, locales, make up, stunts, choreography, visuals, cinematography, music, costumes.
The story is all about how one’s desire to do things out of reach can gain enemies and in the process spoil the original objective itself. Vikram’s desire to become a super model driven by the love for Amy earns him enemies and eventually spoils his only asset which is his physique and face. How he gets out of it and gets back his lady love in the process taking revenge on people who spoilt him is the story in brief.
I will try the onion-peel approach to de-construct or reverse engineer to reach the kernel of this magnum opus of Shankar.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE.
The stunts and songs are extravagant and meant to please a section of the audience. So let us ignore it no matter how high octane and beautiful they are. I will not harp on the fact that they are unrealistic etc. I can assume that for example the roof top stunt with bi-cycles in China in reality could be something like the crew which is doing the ad shoot is able to call the police or public rushes to help Vikram and he escapes unhurt. So the artistic liberty taken by directors can be easily admired and crossed over without dwelling on it and wasting time as to it being illogical etc.
If you like rich visuals, gravity defying stunt sequences, then you can watch the movie only for that. It is so rich and colourful and it definitely brings a section of audience to watch the movie.
OK, with the songs and stunts behind our back, let us look at the comedy scenes. Santhanam has a similar role played by Vivek in Anniyan, that being the friend of Vikram. Not just cracking jokes some of which makes you laugh but beyond that helping the hunch back Vikram to come out of his depression and start to take revenge on his tormentors. So, he moves Vikram around inside a cart as an ice cream seller. So if you feel the comedy is a misfit to look at the kernel of what the story is, Santhanam serves as the side kick giving the necessary logistics support or filling the gaps for the hero to carry on his job either in the initial days when he is going after Amy Jackson or when he is into modelling assignments and in later part when he is after his enemies.
Now we see two big threads. One is the characters and their interactions. Other is the plot on which the characters travel. There is a question as to whether the characters make the plot or the plot is independent of the characters. We will try to figure this out as we move on.
Vikram’s character is fairly well sketched. He is the typical north madras lower middle class resident , innocent , running a gym and has two broad objectives. One to become Mr. Tamilnadu and the other slightly lesser interest following Amy as a model in all the ads she appears. It is not love. It is a sort of admiration or being a fan of a celebrity. He eats, sleeps and drinks Amy when he is not pumping iron. A chance meeting with Amy happens which is the story part that helps Amy to rope in Vikram for a modelling assignment in China due to a problem that Amy faces. So this is all going reasonably OK. No big issues in terms of the way the story moves or the characters tying into the story.
Amy is kind of the single parent brought up kid as only the mother is shown. She is more pampered and beautiful and grows up to do modelling assignments out of her choice. She likes her profession and is sincere in giving it her 100%. She is not doing it for the sake of money as she does not fall for Upen who is a co-actor in the modelling she does. She has her morals in spite of being in a industry where slipping is easy.
Upen’s advances and her refusal to fall for him moves the story into a position where she is kept out of modelling assignments due to the influence wielded by Upen on the modelling company executives and owner. She finds Vikram with the help of her mentor Suresh Gopi. Suresh is a family doctor of Amy and a friend as well since her child hood. Suresh also goes to the Gym run by Vikram and he sort of helps Amy to rope in Vikram for the modelling assignment as he knows both. He has influence on Vikram by sponsoring his Mr.Tamilnadu competition entry.
The story now moves into a path of establishing real love between Amy and Vikram while in China. The character of Vikram slowly changes from being an admirer or a fan to a lover and Amy from seeing Vikram as a junior brought up by her in the field to her lover with turn of events. These are shown very gradually and convincingly.
There are 4 enemies created in the process of transformation of Vikram from a body builder to a super model. Upen who wants Amy is jealous of Amy moving around with Vikram as well as his own modelling going for a toss because Vikram - Amy combination becomes a big hit. Vikram’s make up man-woman who has a crush on Vikram also becomes jealous of him moving with Amy. This is a bit unbelievable, but it is a very small part of the story.
Vikram also shoots down a cola modelling assignment as it has pesticides apart from openly talking about it in the media which results in a big let down for that product and this irks the big boss of the modelling company. His earlier Mr.Tamilnadu contestant who loses to Vikram becomes a enemy.
Now by themselves all these four would have been quite harmless and mostly be fuming within themselves. It is actually the fifth person Suresh who is portrayed as a family friend and doctor who also has an eye for Amy since her child hood becomes the main catalyst to the whole group making them go for the kill. Sorry not killing per se, but they want something more than that (in Tamil Adhukum mela). They want to disfigure him. They inject a virus into him and Vikram thus turns into a hunchback with a ugly face and body.
Thus the plot is quite linear so far. The characters are fairly well essayed and the interconnections between the characters and the way the plot moves are straight and believable as well.
The other big thread of the movie involves the hunchback character of Vikram who goes through depression, keeps away from Amy, in fact goes to the extent of proving he is dead by a fake accident and then learns how Suresh has duped him for getting Amy along with the others and conspired to disfigure him. Thus the hunchback’s only purpose is to disfigure badly all the 5 villains and goes about it clinically. The layer of how each of the five get disfigured is an extra detail and can be imagined in different ways. This takes a lot of cue from Anniyan’s Garuda puranam episodes.
The key point is that the story revolves around people, their desire, lust and the vengeance they wreck on each other. Also another layer of story revolves around the concept of ‘true love’. True love is not physical only. It transcends beyond physical into the soul. This happens to Amy who asks Vikram what he would have done had she been disfigured. It is a very defining moment of the whole story. I feel this is the pivot around which everything else is constructed. This is the main theme. This is the kernel of this movie. If you see a story as a pure love story then it is very normal. A lot has been done in movies around it. Now if you add a layer of platonic love transcending physical aspects, then the hunchback with the ugly face comes in. If you ask how he came to become a hunchback, then the rest of the plot falls in.
Overall, it is a clean story telling tying all the knots starting from a very simple outline. With the imagination pulling this basic kernel of a story into different directions, it becomes a magnum opus. This is the magic you can do on a big screen with the technology and Shankar has spared nothing to see its maximum potential.
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