Rudra and Mithila Palkar play a couple whose love story is like the movies, and yet, a lot like life outside the movies. The result is an easy-breezy watch. The rest of this review may contain spoilers.
If Gautham Vasudev Menon dialled down the intensity and increased the candyfloss-ness of one of his romances, we’d get something like Oho Endhan Baby. It’s not just that Vaaranam Aayiram is referenced here. It’s also the unapologetic urban upper-class vibe, even if some of the characters are middle-class. Newcomer Rudra (cousin of Vishnu Vishal, this film’s producer) plays Ashwin, an aspiring director. The film is meta in fun ways. It keeps referencing actors and scenes and incidents from Tamil cinema, like the fact that Ashwin is an engineer who wants to be a filmmaker. The scenes sometimes open with captions that remind you of a screenplay, and the very structure of the film is that of a story narration. Ashwin narrates his story to a Vishnu Vishal-like star, who’s played by Vishnu Vishal. He is tired of acting in thrillers and wants to do a love story. And this star encourages this fresher, just like Vishnu Vishal has groomed Rudra for this movie.
There’s a no-fuss nature about the filmmaking by director Krishnakumar Ramakumar. There’s a kiss, which is a big moment for Ashwin – but the music does not make it a big moment. We get complete silence as the camera moves away. Ashwin falls for Meera (the lovely Mithila Palkar), and she’s a few years older – but again, no fuss. The point is made and then quietly tucked away. There’s a similar no-fuss quality about a small lesbian track, or the fact that an ex-girlfriend has moved on and is now living with another man. The drama is reserved for the elders, like Ashwin’s father who believes in horoscopes and his long-suffering mother. Their constant fights leave an impact on Ashwin, in ways that affect his love life. He wants a peaceful partner, but Meera comes with her own baggage. You wish all these conflicts had been written better. As they appear, they show up a bit conveniently and are resolved even more conveniently.
However angry Ashwin is about his situation, and however mad he is about the movies, would a boy not recognise that the girl he likes is talking seriously to him? This scene is meant to show that Ashwin needs to grow up emotionally, but he comes across as someone who needs to grow up physically, too – in the sense that he comes off like a child. But the central conflict is solid. When Ashwin narrates incidents, he makes it sound like a screenplay – but he needs to realise that life is different from the movies. If Ashwin wants to make his movie, he has to swallow his ego and fix the issues with Meera. Rudra makes an appealing debut and pairs up well with Mithila – though I wish her character had been brought into the movie much earlier.
The film could have used some GVM-style intensity. But I got the feeling that they were looking to make a rom-com, without too much heavy-duty emotion. There’s a scene where Meera is shocked by Ashwin’s sudden display of violence, and it brings back very bad memories. She screams at him. But a second later, she apologises. That is the general feel of the film. Flaws and all, Oho Endhan Baby has a nice, easy-breezy vibe with a nice score by Jen Martin and vibrant frames by cinematographer Harish Kannan, and that keeps you watching. And after Dragon, Mysskin scores again as an actor. He plays himself, and his scenes with Karunakaran are light and fun. I kept smiling throughout. One thing that stands out in these films is how easily the characters hop across social classes and make no big deal about it. We saw this earlier in the year with Nilavuku En Mel Ennadi Kobam. It’s a kind of youthful utopia, and for a couple of hours, it’s a pleasant place to be.
