Pradeep Ranganathan plays a man who believes in old-fashioned love. He falls for Krithi Shetty, who thinks an app will decide her mate. How will these polar opposites come together? The answer lies in a disappointing, by-the-numbers drama that contains very little of Vignesh Shivan’s signatures. That’s the short take. A longer review follows, and it may contain spoilers.
Once upon a time, marriages were made in heaven. Or as Kannadasan wrote, “Innaar-kku innaar endru ezhudhi vaithaane dhevan andru.” From the gods, the fate of relationships fell into the hands of marriage brokers, then matrimonial web sites, and now, we have numerous apps that say they can find you the person of your dreams, the person you want to wake up next to. Vignesh Shivan takes this idea a little further in LIK, which is set in the year 2040. The title stands for the name of an app: Love Insurance Kompany. This app ensures the compatibility of a couple, and in case things don’t work out, it can also say who the wronged party is and help them claim a penalty. This hi-tech device was created by a human named Suriyan, played by SJ Suryah. He fell in love the old-fashioned way and he had his heart broken the old-fashioned way, and he decided no one should have to endure this agony ever again.
The film is simply beautiful to look at. Production designers Muthuraj and Dhivya Venugopal, cinematographer Ravi Varman (with an assist from Sathyan Sooryan), and the colourful and futuristic costumes by Shangreihan Keishing, Rini Pant, and Praveen Raja – all of this combines to create utterly gorgeous eye candy. In terms of world building, LIK is a success. Sadly, that is also the only aspect in which the film succeeds. The performances are all strictly default-level – but even that is okay. The biggest failures are the writing and the direction. LIK is Vignesh Shivan’s blandest movie, and I say this as a fan who thinks he made the best and most out-of-the-box episode of Paava Kadhaigal. The director’s trademark quirkiness and irreverence and black humour are utterly absent. The jokes, instead, are about a couple named Rashmika and “Ajay” Deverakonda. There’s another joke where someone named HA Subbu is called “Echa” Subbu. And Yogi Babu is around, trying to do Yogi Babu things that even a hardcore Yogi Babu fan would find hard to smile at.
At the core, there is a solid concept. Pradeep Ranganathan plays Vibe Vassey, whose father (Seeman) has raised him in a tech-free, ashram-like community called Organic World. The “hero face-reveal” occurs as Vassey speaks to birds in a nest, saying that they will flourish because there are no mobile signals around. In other words, this is a smartphone-free zone. Krithi Shetty plays Dheema, and she is the exact opposite. As a little girl, when she wanted a cake, her mother directed her to a food-delivery app and when she wanted a bedtime story, her mother directed her to Alexa. Dheema is now an influencer, and her entire existence is based on technology. When Vassey runs into Dheema, he is so love-struck that his heart literally stops for a few seconds. Will this tech-free guy be able to forge a relationship with this girl who views her phone as an extension of her arm? The answer should have made us swoon, especially at a time love stories have become such a rarity at the movies.
But the storytelling is flat and bland. At no point do we feel the great love that Vassey has for Dheema, and when he swears to destroy LIK and bring back old-fashioned love formed through human connection, at no point do we feel the seriousness of his enmity with Suriyan. No one in the film has any strong personality trait, and all we are left with are endless, pointless scenes like the one with a Halloween party. We get cameos from popular YouTubers and reel-makers, and even Rangaraj Pandey makes an appearance. At the end, LIK feels like a project no one wanted to continue with after a point, but just gritted their teeth and went through the motions because the producer held a gun to everyone’s head. At the end, this feels like a low-level Shankar-AR Murugadoss knockoff, with a tragic flashback and a message about the dangers of AI. At the end, we are left with the depressing idea that even in 2040, Tamil cinema is going to be getting its kicks with swearwords that sound like “what the..”
