Soorarai Pottru: Analysis

Soorarai Pottru (2020)

Directed by: Sudha Kongara

Starring: Suriya, Aparna Balamurali, Paresh Rawal, Mohan Babu

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Initially I was a little hesitant towards this film, because this film is again about a man who changes the society and it's such an overly done thing - but I loved the writing and the execution of the film. This film reminds me of Mersal - both of these films inspired me to feel and think at least for a while, from a socialist perspective and coincidentally both the films have protagonists named 'Maaran'. Usually I'm resistant towards people who pity themselves, cry and play victims - but I realized how privileged a notion this is after watching films like this. A person like me, who's selfish and all for individualism - even I got slightly moved after watching some scenes in the film. The subplot of Maaran's father works even in solidarity, and it also directly adds to the main plot. The unresolved tiff between them, and the father thinking that his son thinks of him as a loser - acts like an inner void for Maaran. The scene where he cries and reads his father's writings, that inspires him to pursue and solve this problem. 

The filmmaking is top notch, especially the way they shoot scenes with a lot of extras - they felt so real and I wondered what kind of efforts would've gone into making them seem so effortless - the scenes in the roads, near their house, and many more. The editing is so fluid, each scene cuts into one another and after a while I didn't even realize I had seen 30 mins of the film - and this is surprising because the film is a heavy drama for the most part. One screenwriting principle is to torture the hero as much as possible, so that the audience would root for them - and this film it is done beyond that, even I felt exhausted watching him suffer so much and this being a real story - it makes it heartbreaking, and when he finally does it - it's inspiring.

Although I've some issues with the blatant socialism in the film - in a scenario where people help him by giving him all their life savings - they've to realize that it's for a business and it doesn't make sense - because then they emotionally blackmail him to "win" and it isn't always in his hands - there's also luck factor which could either favor him or fuck him up. That would only put more pressure on him, the feeling that he's probably gambling with others' entire life savings. The villain, is one dimensional - the way he plots and goes against Maaran is interesting - especially the interval block, but his characterisation is too generic.