Review: Mouna Guru
There are these one-offs sleepers that come from no where and catch you off-guard. Trust (almost) all the hype around ‘Mouna Guru’. This is by no stretch earth-shattering fresh, so you know. Thanks to the massive word-of-mouth, the movie’s going to be a sure hit. It helps that Arulnithi’s family has the resource to run those 10 second teasers every 10 minutes.
Another David vs Goliath story? Yes. கொஞ்சம் different. The proceedings are not always about the Hero, which makes it an interesting variation though. Every character has her/his own journey, you lose track of the “Hero” every now and then and you don’t really care.
An example — the Hero has a brother, who happens to have a college Principal for a friend. That Principal’s son has a back story. That is how deep the roles go (however short and subtle they may be). The movie is crowded with such small people, but each one of them on a tight leash, which shows the kind of control the director (Santha Kumar) is capable of, while keeping the script taunt.
I haven’t revealed the show stealer: John Vijay (How does he go from a goof ball in ‘Va Quarter Cutting’ to this?) and Uma Riaz Khan (Frances McDormand inspired role from Fargo). They ease into roles that veteran Tamil actors routinely overdo.
Mahesh Muthuswamy’s framing and lighting reminds you of his outings with Mysskin.