It’s not hard to imagine the kind of film that director Priya V wanted her latest release, Pon Ondru Kanden, to be: a simple, light-hearted tale about two quirky middle-aged men who put their lifelong enmity aside and become friends only to fall for the same woman, refuelling their hatred for each other. Yes, even as a one-liner, it doesn’t really inspire novelty, but this is a film written and directed by Priya. So, the prospect of her reintroducing the charm of her Kanda Naal Mudhalor Kannamoochi Yenada to a new generation of youngsters — with a capable contemporary cast of actors, modern filmmaking sensibilities, and fresh humour — surely intrigues.
Unfortunately, Pon Ondru Kanden is anything but a patience-testing, shockingly joyless, colossally derailed attempt at that. Imagine watching a film anchored by adult characters who behave as if they are possessed by cartoon characters. From start to finish, the film feels like a drear fest of cardboard cut-outs of cliche archetypes. Ashok Selvan’s Siva is a modern, city-bred youth, while Vasanth Ravi’s Sai is a youth from Kumbakonam who spent the last four years taking care of his mother (Sachu) suffering from Dementia. The two childhood enemies become friends at a school reunion. Becoming friends is fine but what makes them become such good friends seems to be a question Priya wishes you didn’t ask.
Now, how do we show their background while ensuring that Sai depends on Siva to navigate city life? Show Siva as the one who goes on multiple dates to posh bars and show Sai as the naive small-town man who doesn’t know how to talk to women or behave “normally” in any situation. These are the kind of cliche tropes that Pon Ondru Kanden is filled with.
Such shallow writing extends to even the female lead, Sandy, a.k.a Sundari (Aishwarya Lakshmi), a young woman working as a chef, who we realise shared a history with one of the two men, and is now in close equations with the other. Naturally, this develops into a love triangle, but we never truly understand what goes in Sandy’s mind as she becomes a mere puppet stuck between two vexingly one-dimensional man-children.
Pon Ondru Kanden (Tamil)
Adding to the woes is the utterly monotonous plot, replete with cliches, that we see these characters traverse. There’s a lot of convenience in how the story progresses. For instance, whenever we need to put one of these characters on the path of the other, Shiva’s job as a gynaecologist or his workplace is what mostly comes to the rescue.
Making this wafer-thin plot more difficult to get through is the casting of Vasanth as Sai; a character so starkly different from his previous ones was a much-needed departure for the actor, but Sai is surely not what was needed. At times, you wonder if anyone speaks in the modulation that he speaks in, and even if so, whether that was a necessary trait when nothing else about this character really comes through.
Vasanth Ravi, Aishwarya Lekshmi and Ashok Selvan in a still from ‘Pon Ondru Kanden’ | Photo Credit: Jio Cinema
In fact, the one good stretch in the film comes when we don’t follow Sai; this is when we see Shiva and Sandy at a medical camp. The frames, the lighting and the music add up so well, and the Mani Ratnam fan in Priya is visibly and consciously in play. In a film filled with over-the-top writing, this portion is the only respite we get. But how the subplot between Sandy and Shiva is written after that scene is again another matter of worry.
Tamil cinema seems to be in quite a pivotal place when it comes to cracking the romance genre for a new-gen audience. While the success of a film like Good Night has ushered in more serious attempts, like Lover, to explore relationships, it’s the Malayalam film Premalu’s triumphant success that really excites one at the prospect of similar romance comedies in Tamil that cater to the new-gen audience. With earnest writing and lots of Gen Z-targeted comedy, that film captured a simple tale of two tender hearts in an endearing fashion.
Perhaps, that is the kind of film you expect from a filmmaker like Priya, and in retrospect, maybe Pon Ondru Kanden was meant to be one such attempt in some capacity. Unfortunately, it’s miles away from what it could have been.
Pon Ondru Kanden is currently streaming on Jio Cinema
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