Keerthy Suresh starrer Raghu Thatha, which is also the directorial debut of Suman Kumar, fails to leave an impact as it shows a poor execution of such a profound and sublime subject. The movie showed a lot of potential in its trailer and the witty dialogues, subject and plot made it a movie worth watching. But after its release, one gets to know, the movie is a complete blunder of such a well thought subject. It clearly shows the naivety of Suman Kumar as a director and creates a chaos out of the film’s plot.
The movie is about a girl Kayalvizhi Pandian (Kayal) and her family. The movie is set in 1960s when women did not play prominent roles in the society. Contrary to them, Kayal is a degree holder and works in the Madras Central Bank. She also writes under the pseudonym of K. Pandian. She is a staunch believer of Periyar and is against the forceful imposition of Hindi language on the people. She also is against marriage, what is the desire of her family members for a girl of her age. Later Kayal’s grandfather is diagnosed with stomach cancer which is terminal and he expresses his three wishes before death. One of them is Kayal’s marriage and this pushes her to marry her friend. The story gets complicated with a letter to her home revealing that K. Pandian is actually Kayal.
The movie deals with a lot of different and good social issues. Feminism, language imposition, politics etc. But rather than a clever homogenous of these topics, the movie is more like a imperfect mixture of them. The movie also consists of many plot holes that the director fails to explain. For instance, Kayal detests Hindi and is against Hindi imposition but she immediately agrees to write a Hindi exam for her own benefit. Keerthy’s character is full of potential, and her performance is as always commendable, but her character does not stand up to mark because of the weak writing and direction.
The movie becomes a mess due to multiple reasons. This might be due to the naivety of a new director, or due to over ambition of the director for the movie. Still, the movie, which had a good potential turned out to be a chaos destroying the expectation of a lot of fans.