Movie review - Meiyazhagan

The Tamil movie Meiyazhagan is creating waves in the lives of people who have watched it.

Many people have loved the movie and reviewed it on different social media platforms.

Why should I be left behind? I thought!

A simple plot where a person, Arul, played by Arvind Awamy, has been estranged from his ancestral home and village, carrying hurt and resentment in his heart, moves to a bigger city, vowing never to return. But destiny has something else in store for him. He has to attend the wedding of his beloved sister, and there he undergoes all the pain that he felt when he left the village. A simpleton, played by Karthi, who knows Arul and his history, accompanies him throughout the wedding and makes Arul feel overwhelmed. Arul even gives him the wrong contact number to avoid any further contact with him. But the more he spends time with this fellow, he begins to loosen and soften up; he begins to uncover the layers of this childhood, when he was happy, and altogether a different person. They spend some time together going to different places that were once a part of their childhood, and the more Arul experiences the goodness of this person, the better he starts getting to know him.

Arul is still not able to recognise who this overbearing person is and gets very uncomfortable by the goodness that this selfless person showcases. He leaves in the middle of the night without saying a proper good-bye to this good-hearted man. His daughter senses the discomfort of Arul and makes a call to the person and asks her dad to talk to him and apologise. This person from the village then gives him many references to childhood—they both played together and how Arul had named him Potato. His name now gets clear to him, and he rushes back to the village to meet him. He calls him by his real name, Meiyazhagan, and the person immediately opens the door, calling Arul, his elder brother!

The story is simple yet has so many layers to it. Men portrayed in this movie are tender, soft, shed tears, and show their soft side easily. The female characters are strong in the background, but the screen time belongs to these two men, and I was blown away by the simplicity yet the depth of the characters. The movie spans just a couple of hours, but we are exposed to almost all the emotions. 

Being a hopeless romantic and an eternal believer in the virtue of goodness and good people, I watched the movie in two sittings, my eyes becoming moist at the drop of a hat. After many days, I had a good feeling about the world and the people in it.  And surely credit goes to the movie makers, who have made this heartful movie in an era of gory, action-packed, item numbers, VFX.

The world right now is not in very good shape. There are endless wars happening here; hateful words are being exchanged amongst people of different backgrounds; the race to gain more and more wealth at the cost of happiness and others is rampant; yet this movie makes you believe that it is not that bad after all.

Do watch this movie on Netflix. It's a slow-burn, the first few minutes could be boring for a few people but as the story picks up, it gets better. Do give it a try and realize it for yourself.

Goodness still exists in the world and only love and forgiveness will make this place a better place, nothing else.