GV Prakash is well-cast as Magi, a young and vulnerable man who moves into a flat that’s occupied by Sindhu, played by Kayadu Lohar. Slowly, Magi realises that Sindhu has her secrets and he needs to escape. The film has many issues in writing and pacing, but it clears a low bar mainly because it’s in a genre that’s not usually seen. How will Magi succeed? This question keeps us watching. That’s the basic storyline and the quick review. A longer analysis follows, and it will contain spoilers. So be warned.
Sometimes, the genre of a film is enough to put it in what our schoolteachers might call the “pass mark” category. Immortal is far from perfect, but it’s not about gangsters doing slo-mo walks and it’s not about youngsters in a comic love story. Magi works in a printing press run by his uncle, and he’s asked to move out of his small flat. Why Magi can’t move in with his uncle for a few days, till he finds a new place, is one of the questions we are not supposed to ask. There’s a hint that the uncle is married to a woman who doesn’t care much for him, but still… this could have made for some comedy or drama. But would that fit into a thriller, you ask? When you can find time to fit a random love song into a film of this nature, some comedy or drama isn’t that much of a stretch!
When Magi rings the doorbell of the apartment he has a lead about, Sindhu opens the door. She is wearing a short dress with spaghetti straps, which is hardly what a woman who apparently lives alone would wear while showing an unknown young man around her house. Later, Sindhu opens the door in a bathrobe, with the camera focusing on the water still glistening on her skin. And soon we realise that this sexualisation is a lure. Sindhu knows what young men want, and she uses her body the way a spider would use a web. So who (or what) is Sindhu? Let’s just call her a creature with strong survival instincts. There’s a nice twist about her origins that leaves room for a sequel, but the basic lore has not been worked out very well. Immortal needed better writing to fully bring out its themes – the theme of a woman using her sexuality, the theme of an immortal being falling for a mortal, or even the theme of how this creature was born into a tribal family.
I wish the plot point about Sindhu’s paintings had been used better. I wish a bit of a comic mood had been introduced into the scenes where Sindhu magically guesses what kind of food to order for Magi. Why does Sindhu hold on to earlier men even after the latest one arrives? What’s the deal with Magi’s blood group? Why does Sindhu not take away Magi’s phone and make him more of a prisoner? Who are the people who guard Sindhu’s building? And most importantly, why not have some scenes with the unusual aspect that Sindhu has finally found love? All these questions apart, writer-director Mariappan Chinna has fashioned a thriller that’s just about watchable, and one whose running time does not test your patience too much. Maybe this is a left-handed compliment, but when the cinema culture around is what it is, you take what you get.
