Debutante Vignarajan and Atlee produced Andhagaaram (Darkness) had a direct to OTT release on Netflix last week. The supernatural thriller is the story of three men — a depressed cricketer, a visually challenged librarian, and a psychiatrist recovering from a personal tragedy — battling their demons. With a runtime clocking close to three hours, Andhagaaram is tailor-made for an OTT release, that it manages to keep us hooked for the majority of the duration is a credit to Vignarajan’s direction and storytelling.
Andhagaaram is one of the most engrossing films made in the Tamil film industry this year. While it may be easy to say this since a majority of OTT releases this year have been duds, Sathyaraj Natarajan’s editing, Edwin Sakay’s cinematography, and Vignarajan’s detailing would have made Andhagaaram stand apart from other Tamil films even if released in theatres.
The non-linear narration with frequent cross-cutting make it challenging to piece together the sequence of events, there is as much work for the viewer as there was for the makers. For a supernatural thriller, there’s hardly any gore or jump scares, and yet, Andhagaaram manages to keep you hooked till the end. Well, almost.
Where the movie tapers off, like a lot of other thrillers, is during the “big reveal”, and that has been the gripe for a majority of the viewers. There could have been a better way to reveal the motivation of a character than a simple phone conversation. While the reason for the events to take place did not have enough conviction, had it been shown convincingly, Andhagaaram could have scored better.
Arjun Das (Vinod), Vinoth Kishan (Selvam), and Kumar Natrajan (Dr. Indran) are the three lead characters, and they play their roles with aplomb. Special mention to Vinoth Kishan who shines through as the librarian. Arjun Das who came into the limelight for his voice in Kaithi has a larger screen time and shows us his acting chops.
While Andhagaaram just falls short of a perfect thriller, it is still a well-made film and will make Vignarajan a director to watch out for.
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