Vaayai Moodi Pesavum

7/7/2014

If his debut film Kadhalil Sodhappuvadhu Yeppadi was an irreverent rom-com, in his second effort Balaji Mohan gives us a high-concept comedy which, in its second half, is entirely a silent film. Well, almost. Many of its tropes must be familiar to those who have seen enough Hollywood comedies and rom-coms. A do-gooder hero with a dream, a heroine with a jerk of a boyfriend, her somewhat dysfunctional family (here, it includes a forever busy dad, stepmom who has stopped writing to take care of the family and whom the heroine isn't ready to accept yet, a stepbrother who flunks in his class but is highly creative), a charity organization that faces eviction, and so on. But the director shows that you only need a bit of invention to turn routine into unique. The film is set in Panimalai, a