PAAVA KADHAIGAL Review

Paava Kadhaigal is a 2020 Netflix anthology movies: Thangam, Love Panna Uttranam, Vaanmagal, Oor Iravu. The anthology is directed by Sudha Kongara, Vignesh  Shivan, Gautham Vasudev Menon and Vetrimaaran respectively. 

Thangam: Thangam is the 1st part of Paava Kadhaigal, directed by Sudha Kongara, starring Shanthnu Bhagyaraj, Kalidas Jayaram and Bhavani Sre in lead roles. Thangam mainly talks about the character Sathaar played by Kalidas Jayaram. As a transgender, Sathaar is considered a misfortune by the villagers and his father always. Saravanan (Thangam) is the only person who cares about Sathaar. Being best friends since childhoods, Thangam was there to stands for Saathar in whatever situations. Rest of the movie travels in an emotional path, which shows how Sathaar get affected when his close friend leaves him, and he became alone in the village.  Thangam is a heart-touching experience from Sudha Kongara. All the casts well performed. Sathaar played by Kalidas is the major highlight of the movie. He presented that character in a well-balanced way. The director succeeds to show us what’s the range of the actor inside him. Kali is an asset for the industry, be it Kollywood or Mollywood. His name is going to resonate from now on. Shanthnu’s one of the best performance ever. The whole crew worked well to give us the best segment from the anthology.

Love Panna Uttranam: Love Panna Uttrunam by Vignesh Shivan portrays the approach of some part of society towards the love and marriage between people of different caste and religion. Anjali as twins Aadhilakshmi and Jothilakshmi is the lead of the movie. Their father Veerasimman is a leader of that village. He leads a gang of goons to act against these intercaste marriages in the village by giving threat and murdering people. When his daughter Jothilakshmi convey about her affair with their driver, Veerasimman handles the incident in a tragic way, which affects both of his twin daughters. For the first time, Vignesh Shivan is touching this serious genre movie. However, the film also has a few funny moments, which makes the Love Panna Uttrunam lesser tragic compared to others. Anjali is an underrated actress for sure. The actor who played the character Nari performed really well. Anirudh gave a perfect output.

Vaanmagal: Vaanmagal is the 3rd part, which is a Gautham Vasudev Menon directorial. Vaanmagal is also a different movie you have never seen from Gautham Vasudev Menon (GVM). Vaanmagal reminds us of how hard it is for women to live in this society. Even from a kid to old aged women are getting molested in this world. It is causing a depth scar for the victim and her family. Vaanmagal takes us to the family of Sathya, who lives with his wife Mathi, son and two daughters joyfully and peacefully. When one of his daughters being a victim of abuse, their peaceful lives get destroyed. Things get changed for the whole family members, and they hide their face from the public. The rest talks about how the family decided to handle this issue. Mathi played by Simran is the key character in the film. As a mother, this incident haunts her every time. She regrets every time for not giving more care to her daughter. She is afraid of losing the pride of her family in the society. Her decision in the ending is a perfect message that we can get from the movie. The love and support of a family are more than any pride in the society. As a victim, instead of thinking wrong, move on and fly even high is the best thing we can do. The movie also well portrays the punishment for the rapist we can give, instead of letting him roam around free or by killing him. All the characters in the movie were amazing. In every Gautham Vasudev Menon movie, it has some soul and life, that makes him one of the top director in the industry. This year GVM again prove how wonderful an actor he is. We saw his performance in Trance and Kannum Kannum Kollaiyadithaal this year. Sathya from Vaanmagal is another feather in his cap for acting.

Oor Iravu: Oor Iravu is the last part of Paava Kadhaigal, directed by Vetrimaaran. Oor Iravu shows a dad (Prakash Raj) who goes to his daughter Sumathi (Sai Pallavi), who ran away with her boyfriend years back. Now when he heard his daughter is pregnant, he wanted to see her and invite Sumathi and her husband to their village to have a baby shower function. Upon seeing her father, Sumathi is now very happy and left with him. When she reaches her home in the village, she realizes, most of her sisters and brother are very angry with her due to her ran away with her boyfriend. The night before the baby shower event, her dad asks all the relatives and family except his wife to go to the event venue. After a few minutes, Sumathi starts to show some symptoms of fever and body ache, which later make her health worse. Rest of the movie is about what happens to Sumathi, and the real face of her dad. Everyone who watched the four episodes of Paava Kadhaigal would say, Oor Iravu is the most disturbing part in the whole film. The movie clearly shows us, how most of them are scared on the society, and they can go to any extent to protect their pride, to keep their goodwill untouched and the discrimination based on the caste, religion and financial status. Oor Iravu is cruelty at its peak. We have seen many incidents around us when it comes to murdering people for the intercaste marriage. We used to see in most of the cases the parents kill their son or daughter. For what? To protect their pride and goodwill from getting spoiled in society. Vetrimaaran’s another raw and realistic writing with an extraordinary performance from Prakash Raj and Sai Pallavi. 

Paava Kadhaigal is a good anthology you can stream on Netflix. The portrayal of 4 tragic short movies makes us little disturbed for a day. Love, Honor, Pride and Sin – We will get to know how these four acts in our society to change the lives of people. The four brilliant directors – Sudha Kongara, Vignesh Shivan, Gautham Vasudev Menon and Vetrimaaran had shown us real-life incidents and attitude of many people. We should consider this as a reminder of what we need to care and how we need to react, and we need to live for ourselves instead of for society.