Krishnakumar Ramakumar’s Tamil Oho Enthan Baby is filled with characters designed for a revamp. Apart from an affable uncle, there are toxic men screaming at and taunting their soul mates. But they eventually come around, repentant and cleansed, almost magically.
This is a film about characters on the mend. And none the worse for it. The whole set-up (written by Mukesh Manjunath and Sarada Ramanathan) may seem redolent of over-plotting. But the essential idea of tackling toxicity remains untouched in spite of all the manipulative manoeuvres of writers who want to keep it clean, in spite of the mess the characters insist on creating.
There is the young hero Ashwin (Rudra, a delightful debut) whose parents fight so much they appear to be on the verge of mutual annihilation. Ashwin dreams of becoming a filmmaker. So he narrates the story of his own aborted love life to a star, Vishnu Vishal (playing himself with a commanding candour).
This device of a film-within-film is clever enough to condone, if not conceal, the film’s obviously-borrowed slices. The entire end-game, where Ashwin goes to Manipal to get his ladylove Meera (Mithila Palkar, sweet if not striking) back from her duplicitous boyfriend, is Jab We Met encored. And nonetheless likeable for it.
There are many derivative loops in the storytelling. These enrich rather than diminish the impact. The characters, in dire need of modification, remain potentially likeable in their toxicity, none more so than Ashwin, who is driven by his ancestral demons. His determination to be a better version of himself is disarming.
The film starts with Ashwin’s teen hormones erupting in a rush when he falls for the school hottie Raveena (Vaibhavi Tandle, teasing a ticklish tribute to Tandon). It isn’t clear why Raveena leads Ashwin on with a sumptuous smooch when her heart belongs to a mysterious “Christopher.”
The Raveena chapter opens and closes abruptly. It is the Meera chapter that shapes Ashwin’s future, and the present tense and past imperfect of the plot. His outbursts sometimes feel manufactured and designed as perky illustrations of male toxicity. But the characters are so fleshed-out, they break free from their moulds to make an impression beyond what the screenplay plans for them.
The end product is not irresistible, but certainly agreeable.
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