Originally a twitter thread.

• This film is uneven while wanting to be everything: a relationship drama, a dark comedy, a court procedural, a critique of masculinity. But the angle it skips, is a dealbreaker – the woman’s PoV. It only leaks glimpses of her mind while generously gawking at her body.
• Is it self-aware because it’s only mimicing the gaze of the titular problematic character? No, this results in messy takeaways (or rather no takeaway at all) because this immature guy’s arc also ends with an epiphany where he again, makes it about himself. The irony doesn’t land?
• The final middle finger to him doesn’t land as intended either, precariously coming across as just another curveball in this guy’s dishelved life, almost calling for our empathy. Or I wish at least half the efforts of observing Darling were put into understanding Subbu.
• The film clearly wants to impress its (titular) target audience in every step of the way, with showy(wannabe) craft and risque humour. Lot happens in the film, but the emotions are showpieces, and rarely affecting. Even displays of selflessness from the friends aren’t convincing.
• The attempts at normalising sex are situations written with the sole purpose of dropping “bold” words/topics. Its idea of playing to the gallery is to design “cool” goofups that could make the one-dimensional anti-hero more palatable than he is. This charade is never-ending.
• It takes more than a series of the person’s actions for a character study to command attention. To buy into their persona requires colouring in the form of rationale, or internal/external leadup to their doings. Mere antics won’t work when coming from inside an emotional vacuum.
• For a film that will walk absurd lengths to prove its quirkiness, the way it seals the bond between man and woman is extremely lazy (that it’s also contrived /problematic are debates for another day). There sure is a sense of people/community, but is wasted on a defunct story.
• The one thing I liked here is the use of the Coimbatore dialect, which may not be consistent across the board, but is still fresh to hear away from the YouTube space. Divya Bharathi can perform but isn’t given the scope, whereas GVP has to function on a limited set of reactions.
• Premam‘s aesthetic is like a set of happy mistakes, than elaborate. It has the vibe of a jamming session, but one from the edit table. I doubt even Puthren could recreate it. Sathish mimics the same, succeeds a bit, but the emotional ommisions in his writing kill the attempt.