The OTT Platform has stretched its wings wide across the length and breadth of the globe crossing language barriers!
Films have begun to release directly on the OTT Platform while even theatrical releases are landing there just in a couple of weeks or even days, soon after!
Modern Love Chennai – the six-part anthology film from Prime Video, adapted from the Modern Love series in The New York Times is the latest release on that arena!
The original Modern Love, which streamed in 2018 on Amazon Prime Video, was created by John Carney, based on the very popular New York Times column by the same name.
This desi adaptation has brought on board a bunch of discerning filmmakers who have come up with their respective interpretations of love, love-hate relationships, break-ups, moving on after that, reunion so on and so forth…
Raju Murugan’s Lalagunda Bommaigal showcasing the excellent facial expressions of Sri Gouri Priya professes the maxim-Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover!
It deliberates on love, pre-marital sex, break-up and moving on…
The god-man’s character has been well conceived and crafted.
The character of the immigrant selling Pani Puri deserves mention -meaning, men will always remain men!
The second one, Imaigal, by Balaji Sakthivel, is a dignified tale of dignified love proclaiming that true love triumphs over human shortcomings, both mental and physical!
TJ Banu as a girl with failing eye sight is very natural and Ashok Selvan playing her husband portrays it to perfection!
The closing portions are heartwarming with the husband offering a sound suggestion to her to get engaged in the sound of music wherein physical setback bears no significance!
One of the best among the rest!
The third one, Krishnakumar Ramakumar’s Kaadhal Enbadhu Kannula Heart Irukkara Emoji toys with the idea of love and romance as seen from the view point of a school girl, the character enacted by Ritu Varma. It is hard to digest her as a school-going girl in the opening frames! It is about a girl facing a break up and her efforts to move on, further! The scenes on one-to-one meetings between the girl and the candidates she shortlists from a Dating App, appear interesting! Well known film critic Barathwaj Rangan makes a guest appearance who quotes French filmmaker, Jean Luc Godard regarding films as being beautiful frauds! Ritu retorts, You are an English speaking Blue Sattai Maran!
Ritu’s performance is just passable! There is nothing new or novel neither in the plot nor in the presentation!
Akshay Sundher’s Margazhi talks about adolescent love, opening notifying that like boys, girls too are interested to talk about sex an sex-related matters, rather, freely! The plot is set around the life of a teenage girl, Jasmine (Sanjula Sarathy) whose parents have just parted ways! She gets infatuated with a neighborhood boy (Chu Khoy Sheng) and her sorrows turn into joy and the episode ends on that note, a bit too abruptly! Probably, the idea of the filmmaker was to let the girl in peace with her new found happiness brought in through her new found companion!
Also, maybe, the filmmaker wanted to wrap it up with just touching upon the mindset of the contemporary girls of the times, like that of Jasmine, in this!
Seasoned filmmaker Bharathiraja’s Paravai Kootil Vaazhum Maangal with Kishore, Vijayalakshmi and Remya Nambeesan are the three sides of a triangular tale of love follows a steady flow, screenplay-wise but a happily married woman with two kids in toe accepting the situation as it is when her husband (Kishore) confesses that he has professed his love for a divorcee (Vijayalakshmi), a Metro Train acquaintance and then doing the needful to unite them looks a bit too unusual as well as unnatural!
She lets them to enter wedlock, takes up a job and visits her children regularly! Isn’t a bit too much!
The closing film, the last short of the anthology, Ninaivo Oru Paravai, from director Thiagarajan Kumararaja ups the trend of man-woman relationships of the times more from the angle of ‘fatal attraction’ though the filmmaker has tried to moderate it by ringing in an emotional connect while the curtains go down!
The bedroom sequences have been boldly presented with Wamiqa Gabbi stealing the frames with her enthusiastic performance in an earnest manner that too, in an uninhibited manner!
Repetitive shots of the couple smoking soon after having sex could have been avoided!
Modern Love-all about love in several tones against the backdrop of Chennai!
Watch it all for the love of it in the modern times!