Movie Mush: Deiva Thirumagal

Knowing that this was an adaptation of "I am Sam", I watched this movie with not a lot of expectations because I didn't like the original Sean Penn starer that much. But what stood out in that movie was the brilliant performance of Sean Penn. He carries the movie in his shoulders and makes it worth watching.


It was interesting to see the way director Vijay adapt the story for the tamil audience:


1) The protagonist's wife leaves the child in his hands as soon as she had given birth to the child as she wasn't interested in raising it in "I am Sam" but for the traditional tamil audience, that could be "immoral", so like all tamil films where the mother character is not needed, Krishna and his wife were supposedly in "love" and his wife dies in child birth! Wow, hats off, Vijay! :P


2) In the original English version, the lawyer (one of the best performances by Michelle Pfeiffer till date) agrees to handle Sam's case because, when she makes an occasional remark to her friends that she is handling Sam's case for free, they pass it off as a joke because everyone knows that she is money minded. In the tamil version, of course, the lawyer Anu, played by Anushka, cannot have shades of grey, because that could "shock" the audience, so Vijay makes us believe that she agrees to handle the case out of symathy for the child like Krishna (Chiyaan Vikram).


3) In the original, the friends of Sam have a larger role to play; here, they are reduced to a few scenes here and there. What Vijay misses here is a lot of innocent fun and laughter.


4) There are no negative characters in the original movie! 

There, the child gets separated from her father because volunteers of child welfare feel that the child would be better off at foster care or given away for adoption than be with Sam, whereas, here, the child is plucked from the hands of Krishna by his in-laws. Krishna is shown as being fooled by them and thrown out of the car at the very first scene just to make us sympathise with him.


The characters of MS Bhaskar is shown to have negative shades, but why he abruptly turns good near the climax is anyone's guess.


Maybe it is because we tamil audience have long been familiar with the good vs bad story that directors are not risking making a movie with no negative shades at all.


5) In "I am Sam", we fell in love with the character played by Sean Penn. He was even nominated for the best actor category in the Academic Awards that year. The point to be noted is that the movie was in no point trying to exploit the disability of Sam at all. Here, Krishna falls down at the steps of court trying to catch a glimpse of his daughter, he gets beaten up by police because he refuses to move away from the place where he is standing: aren't the police even smart enough to realize that there is something wrong with the guy!


Never exploit someone's disability to make people sympathize for him. That's the cheapest trick at a director's arsenal and its sad that someone like Vijay who gave us a movie like "Madarasapattinam" has resorted to it!


However, the movie has a few noteworthy positives! 'Chiyaan' Vikram's costumes, hair style, even looks and mannerisms seem to have been inspired from Sean Penn's role in the original. As usual, he does a neat job.


Baby Saara as Nila is perhaps the cutest child artist Tamil Cinema has seen since the kid in "Sillunu Oru Kaadhal". The chemisrty between the dad and his girl child has been portrayed beautifully and that is why, the first half seems more enjoyable than the second!


Anushka, for a change, does not have to dance with skirts here and has ample scope to perform! She portrays the role of a young lawyer with enough dignity. But, however nice the "Vizhigalil oru vaanavil.." number may be, it is an unnecessary addition to the story.

Amala Paul is pretty and makes her expressive eyes give a few nice looks but does nothing more than that. She just seems to be a reason to take Nila away from Krishna. Nasser, Santhanam and the rest of the crew all do justice to their roles.


However, the finest moment of the movie comes right at the climax in the court scene when Hrishna meets his daughter after a long time! Brilliant performance by Vikram and Saara that would dampen the eyes of anyone however much you liked or didn't like any other part of the movie! :)


I do not choose to rate this movie, but, let me just say that it is a good local remake of an international classic made memorable by a brilliant performance by Sean Penn! The only sad point is that it could have been better!