Taramani Movie Review

August 11, 2017

1 minute read

Review Overview

Performances

Plot & Narration

Technical Aspects and Music

A daring, compelling film on man-woman relationships

Director Ram's Taramani is a daring, compelling film on man-woman relationships, which hits you hard like a ton of bricks. Ram makes an in-your-face social commentary by exposing the celebrated cliches of privilege-seeking, entitled men that are represented on Tamil screen since time immemorial.

Cast: Andrea, Vasanth Ravi, Anjali, Azhagam Perumal & others

Cinematography: Theni Eswar

Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja

Editing: Sreekar Prasad

Art Direction: Kumar Gangappan

Written & Directed by: Ram

Produced by: JSK Film Corporation & Catamaran Productions

Release Date: 11-08-2017

Run Time: 02:30:00

Director Ram’s Taramani is a daring, compelling film on man-woman relationships, which hits you hard like a ton of bricks. Ram makes an in-your-face social commentary by exposing the celebrated cliches of privilege-seeking, entitled men that are represented on Tamil screen since time immemorial.

One can safely say Taramani is the closest a contemporary Tamil filmmaker has come to make a sincere, authentic feminist movie without degrading the other gender in a long long time. While Ram’s directorial debut Katradhu Tamizh was accused by a section of moviegoers for being chauvinistic, which this author totally disagrees with, I’m pretty sure Taramani will be revered by the same bunch. This paradoxical mindset that reeks of hypocrisy is what Ram attempts to subtly lay bare in Taramani.

Aalthiya Johnson (Andrea) is a progressive, modern, independent woman, who works as an HR manager in a software firm and takes home a fat paycheck. What happens when she meets the lovelorn, regressive, hopeless youngster Prabhunath (Vasanth Ravi) and falls in love with him forms the plot.

The main highlight of Taramani is Ram’s witty, tongue-in-cheek voice over which makes its way through the narrative at regular intervals, without hampering the film’s momentum. While the first half is made enjoyable with Ram’s thought-provoking one-liners, he seamlessly weaves a bevy of accessible metaphors in the second half.

Andrea Jeremiah as Aalthiya is easily her career-best performance. She does complete justice to the role with great confidence and adorable ease. Even the debutant Vasanth Ravi has churned out a believable performance as Prabhunath.

The real success of Taramani is how Ram needlessly touches upon a variety of social issues such as demonetization, tension in India – Sri Lanka relation, globalization, social stratification and economic imbalance, and subverts his narrative tool by demonstrating oblivion as the most cruel human nature.