Meiyazhagan Review: An Introvert and Extrovert Walk into a Wedding…
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
When you’re born and raised in a place that’s truly feels like home in your heart, a place you imagine spending the rest of your life in, then having to move away due to unexpected change in circumstances can be gut-wrenching. The opening minutes of the 2024 Tamil movie ‘Meiyazhagan’ poignantly captures that pain – a young boy, who’s just finished high-school, wistfully visits his favourite temple, before heading to his ancestral home, to leave it forever. A property dispute and betrayal lead to his family being ousted from their home.
Written and directed by C. Prem Kumar, ‘Meiyazhagan’ stars Arvind Swamy as Arulmozhi, who reluctantly returns to his hometown after over two decades to attend the wedding of a first cousin—a hometown once inseparable from his identity. At the wedding, Arulmozhi encounters an energetic younger man (played by Karthi), who claims the two spent a very happy childhood summer at his house. Arulmozhi cannot remember the man and is too embarrassed to admit it. As the two men spend more time together, Arul rediscovers a forgotten part of his lost, cheery younger self.
The first forty minutes of ‘Meiyazhagan’ are nostalgically engaging, especially for viewers who’ve traded small town lives for bigger cities or those who’ve simply have had to move away from the village/town/city they were raised in. Even though he is headed to a wedding, Arulmozhi cannot help but stop by the house that once belonged to his family. And once he is at the wedding venue, close relatives, who haven’t seen him for years, are overjoyed by his presence. The accompanying musical score by composer Govind Vasantha adds to the evocative charm of the story.
Actor Raj Kiran has a small cameo as Arulmozhi’s maternal uncle, but the way he is emotionally overwhelmed to see his sister’s son after so long, strikes a strong chord. Happy, the uncle plants a few kisses on Arul’s face, like a father does to a small child, an exceptionally touching scene since we rarely get to see such familial display of affection between grown men in Indian cinema. A refreshing departure from the scheming, evil mama (mom’s brother) that’s usually up to no good.
The middle chunk of ‘Meiyazhagan’ is where the film begins to falter, getting woefully slow, and dragged out. A scene where Arul goes on stage to wish the bride and groom, is extended for far too long, only for emotional points. Arul’s cousin is shown to be extremely attached to him, especially due to their shared childhood, yet the two don’t meet in all those years. Sure, Arul is bitter about the past, so he never goes back to his hometown, but what was stopping the cousin and everybody else from visiting him in Chennai? A city that’s only one bus and a train away? The story takes place in 2018, so it’s not like connectivity was an issue. A lot of things in the plot would’ve made better sense if the story took place in the 1990s.
The bloated three-hour runtime (2 hr 57 minutes to be exact) will begin to test the viewer’s patience. Actor Karthi as the un-named enthusiastic relative who tails Arul like a loyal pet, flits between likable and annoying in ‘Meiyazhagan’. Although, his character is supposed to be the annoyingly intrusive extrovert to Arvind Swamy’s asocial, quiet, introverted Arul. The story relies on the classic trope of pitting an introvert against an impossibly vibrant extrovert who brings them out of their shell. It’s only in the last hour, that the story becomes heart-warming again, when Karthi’s character finally reveals why he is so thrilled to see Arul after to so many years. To avoid spoilers, let’s not mention the reason, however, it’s a touching connection between the men, an unwitting act of kindness on Arul’s part, that seals his status as a benevolent relative in his younger acquaintance’s heart.
From a distant, uninterested relative who reluctantly heads to his hometown to attend a wedding only out of obligation, Arvind Swamy’s Arul joyfully transforms into a man happy to be back to his roots, singing and dancing his heart out with a near-stranger. Bonding over beers and childhood memories, the two men’s camaraderie shines in ‘Meiyazhagan’ towards its climactic moments. Arvind Swamy is the heart of this film, which should’ve been at least 20 minutes shorter, if not more. In the end, the film celebrates the spirit of small towns, friendships, positivity and the relationships we forge through little acts of kindness.
You can watch ‘Meiyazhagan’ on Netflix.
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