‘Thalaivan Thalivi’ Movie Review: Vijay Sethupati, Nithya Menon Anchor Pandiraj but a troubled entertainer

After seeing Thalaivan thaliviYou can consider a lot of things – how TIFF in families can arise due to petty reasons and how the sex dynamics of the penis play in Indian families, is the film’s radical stance on divorce slightly slant. But before you enter all that, you will be wooed to do this-a South Indian non-vegetarian joint for a hot steaming parotes and chicken anniversary (you win if you win if you order attractive Pale Parota that Vijay Sethupathi and Nitya Meenen eat in the film).

Somehow, Spice is the word that comes to mind thinking about Pandiraj’s latest flick (‘Masala’ feels very strong these days). Thalaivan thaliviLike the spicy Madurai fare, you will find a crowd in all tastes in the entertainment. In his bare bones, it cannot tell the story of a novel – about a feudal couple whose marital life becomes sour, with their families and friends, who already add unnecessary spices to a match. But the film actually comes in the first half, thanks how Pandiraj has mixed many elements that we have joined with the entertainers of such families.

Assembled with intentions and purpose, the film reminds us that the template can still work – and that the elusive monster named patriarchy will lead its head in the world manufactured to host it.

Nithya Menen and Vijay Sethupathi still from ‘Thalaivan Thalaivi’. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

We start with Pararassi aka Arai (Nithya Menen Ebally Participated in the shoulder) and her family took her baby daughter to formal tonsors at the temple of her family god. But when the barber is in half the way through the beard, the Astraged Husband of Pararasi, Azasa Veeran (a luxurious Vijay Sethupathi) and takes off her, suggests that the ceremony is happening without her notice. Two families collide, there are disputes, slaps and taunts, and chaos attracts the attention of a local thief (Yogi Babu) and a family (Kali Venkat and Sah), who visit the temple for her son’s birthday.

Why are both families angry at each other? Why did Arasi go out of his married house, leaving a husband, he loved very much? After all, what is the issue between Veeran and his brother -in -law (RK Suresh)? How much a partota master is in a family owned hotel, when he insists, he eats?

A half-headed-headed child, a boy carrying his birthday cake, and a thief shaken away from his chase, patiently waiting with the audience because a chaotic chaotic story reveals the answers to these questions. First of all, one thing is made clear from the beginning – these are anything but ‘normal’ families, if ever one is one. A joke calls Veeran ‘Kiruku Payan’ (crazy partner), and you are left in partition because they are really crazy, crazy people. The characters, especially the central couples, become so unique that they border on absurdity, and many times, even crosses a hut.

In the hands of less competent artists, this shtick will not stick, but victory and nithya somehow sell attractions, romance and uniqueness of their characters, and the easy chemistry on the screen allows us to forgive us when it becomes a slightly repetitive dramatic. Every five minutes, we dodge them at each other, Veeran screaming in vain, only to silence him without sweating for Arai. It becomes a pattern, and you love how the film is self-aware of Veeran’s helplessness.

Most of the first half quite quite smoothly-except for some problematic dialogues, which we are a little bit like we are witness to how Arasi, after marrying Veeran, gets distraught at how to treat her in-laws. An educated woman who loved the man she believed to take care of, Arasi questioned whether she was marrying to work as an unpaid laborer in her hotel. The life of rest that was promised to him, where she would actually become a ‘Arai’, compromise, and so she returns to her parents’ home. Veeran then follows his home, calms him and brings it back. It becomes a vicious cycle, and it is cheerful how, after one point, these tiffs are triggered by the ego brush, a more fruitless than the other.

Now, while this is fine to show these inconsistent reasons, you expect trigger for large, central TIFF, which eventually strengthened divorce. This is where the film starts losing its foot, as the argument is not sufficiently convinced. Post the interval, the film runs quite wrongly till the climax. Ever since the enemies of Veeran leave him to face him in the temple, when the two go back to a religious pilgrimage, he is written in writing. Till this point, humor gave a strong hand, especially thanks to Yogi Babu, but when the jokes also decrease, it becomes quite tedious to sit through the middle stretch.

The climax that we get become the final entry in a series of problematic in the film, such as a Jibe, about the ‘wife in the relationship’, when Arasi slaps Aarasi Veeran. Yes, domestic violence is normal in such a Millius, but it is ironic to see in a film that speaks against egoistic clashes. A film that believes in sentimentality to cure broken hearts may have done well for the rest of her characters to show the same compassion.

Vijay Sethupathi and Nithya Menon are still from ‘Thalivan Thalivi’. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect Thalaivan thalivi It is an anti -opposition attitude that it propagates. A major concern from Pandiraj’s preaching dialogues can be that the film can be considered as one that supports patriarchal assumptions around the divorce that captures women in relationships, when in fact, it could act as a case study of how divorce does not always respond. There was a value in being a film that only shows how Egos cloud decisions, and this love is entitled to another occasion (and that Parotas can be relaxed foods).

After all, the film had already undone scope for any moral discovery, as it was shown how sick these two people are in the relationship. On the one hand, a fracture for the film Gags overbells dynamic, and on the other, it wants to make a serious statement on relationships. Even if the two are convicted or what happened between the two, there is inconsistency, and the film never responds to how the underlying issue is resolved – do they detect the role of Arai in the family? Do mothers understand the dangers of their actions? We never know, and so the film decreases in its moral lessons.

Perhaps what we can take by this whole practice morally, that couples can decide for themselves – you do not need relatives, friends or filmmakers that you can tell what is right or wrong.

Thalaivan Thalaivii is currently running in theaters

Published – July 25, 2025 07:25 pm IST