Ayothi Movie Review

Tamil cinema has always welcomed and appreciated stories that have owned unique and good content-driven plots. Significantly, it looks like there is yet another inclusion to this list as this Friday witnesses a surprise arrival. Sasikumar’s Ayothi directed by Manthira Moorthy, features Priya Asrani, Yashpal Sharma, Pugazh, and a few more prominent actors in the star cast with N.R. Raghunanthan as the music director.

The story revolves around a good-hearted man (Sasikumar), who gets into a turbulent and complex process of helping a North Indian family by making efforts to send the mortal remains of a woman in their family back to their native so that they can perform the final rites according to their customs.

Yashpal Sharma, who plays a rough and arrogant man travels all the way from Ayothi to Tamil Nadu along with his family comprising wife, daughter (Priya Asrani), and son. While driving back from Madurai to Rameswaram, he creates a mess with his rough nature, which costs the life of his wife due to an accident. Yashpal doesn’t want the autopsy to be performed and wants to transport the wife’s mortal remains to Kashi, where there’s only flight at night. During this juncture, a cab driver’s friend (Sasikumar) gets into the picture and decides to pull off the mission. Will he be able to fulfill the family’s desire or not forms the crux of this story.

The film deals with a couple of good messages – The first one is the transformation of a cold-hearted man into a good being due to the demise of his beloved wife, and the humanity is the best religion in this world. Director Manthira Moorthy has taken up a story that will appeal to the interests of audiences from all walks of life.

Sasikumar needs special mention for choosing a script that completely changes his image. In recent times, he has been disappointing fares and now gets a solid movie to bounce back. A protagonist without a pair, romance, mass elements, etc suits him very well, and it has worked wonders for him in this movie. Everyone will remember and carry his character back home.

The director’s self-confidence in refraining from dubbing the Hindi characters in Tamil makes the film more impactful. Although the characters completely communicate in Hindi, the emotions are properly conveyed to the non-Tamil-speaking groups as well. Priya Asrani’s performance is so natural and commendable. There is one particular scene, where she vents her anger upon her father. Although the entire conversation is in Hindi, we start applauding her performance.

The other actors including Pugazh and Bose Venkat have made a decent spell. The background score by N.R. Raghunanthan stands out to be a pillar of this movie, but the songs look unwanted.

Overall, the director has narrated the story that happens in a single day with so much impact, and the unexpected climax is yet another takeaway.

On the whole, Ayothi surprises and impresses us in many places, it has all traits to impress the audiences without fail.