| Starring | Nedumudi Venu, Namitha Pramod, Nivin Pauly, Innocent |
|---|---|
| Music | Ilaiyaraaja |
| Director | Sathyan Anthikad |
| Producer | Anto Joseph |
| Year | 2012 |
Story: The story revolves around an orphaned girl (Thamara) and how the unexpected arrival of an old man changes her life.
Movie Review: Sathyan Anthikad's Puthiya Theerangal offers a very few likable moments. One such moment happens in the middle of the film. It does not belong to any of the lead characters. A boy, who works as an assistant to a soda-maker, knows that his master loves a girl. His master has speech defect and the boy wants to help him. The boy walks to his master's heart-throb and exactly at that moment child-line workers hand him over to police. His master is also arrested. Both are in the jeep and the boy jumps out of the jeep, runs to the girl and tells her how much his master loves her.
The scene charms and disappoints at the same time. Its appeal lies in its innocence. The fact that Anthikad needed a relatively irrelevant character to inspire a moving moment in the film explains the ordinary nature of the narrative.
Anthikad places his lead character, Thamara ( Namitha Pramod), in a coastal village inhabited by warm-hearted folks. The narrative throws up some engaging characters like an old-woman who waits for her lover from Sri Lanka, a fisherman who cherishes the dream of becoming a film actor one day, a jovial man who just can't stop laughing after he had almost ran his bicycle over his drunkard father and so on.
Not a single character in the film looks out of place. But Puthiya Theerangal turns ineffective. The reason is not that it fails to tell a compelling tale. In fact, the more the director strives to fashion a riveting tale out of a seemingly simple narrative, the more tiresome is the effect and the outcome is nothing less than ordinary.
Namitha ensures a pleasing presence with her graceful looks and effortless portrayal of the character. Nedumudi Venu falls prey to a characterisation that demands clarity. Yet one can't be mindlessly dismissive about Puthiya Theerangal because the film stores certain moments which only Sathyan Anthikad can conjure up.