Review of Mozhi (2007) by Prathaban M — 04 Jan 2008

A beautiful piece of work. After his graceful debut in Azagiya Theeye, Radha Mohan has again delivered one of the better Tamil movies in recent times. His direction is spot-on - simply flawless. As far as his screenplay goes, he could have avoided the stereotype love at first sight thing at the beginning. And some scenes did drag the movie at times, but overall it was a praiseworthy effort.

Jyothika has outperformed everyone in this movie. She really portrays her character so well that as a viewer you start to admire her character rather than sympathize with the character. Prithvi does the difficult parts well, but he seemed so aware of the camera in some of the simple dialog scenes. His portrayal is a lesson to all those sick idiots like Vijay who try to picture themselves as perfect beings in their movies. Prithvi and director do it with so little effort while attracting the viewers rather than repelling them. Prakashraj was perfect. The Prithvi-Prakashraj-Brahmanadam comedy were genuinely funny. Such a relief from repetitive comedies like Vadivelus. And Basker as the professor was splendid. Swarnamalya did not really fit in that league though she did not do bad as to spoil the tempo.

The biggest minus of the movie - the BGM. For such a poetic, peaceful movie, it deserved a much better BGM than this. Imagine Illayarajah composing the BGM for this movie - it would have been magic. The songs were alright.

Hats off to this movie. One of the few Tamil movies in recent times that manage to make you feel proud about.