Paiyaa

Paiyaa (N. Linguswamy, 2010)

It's actually taken me a long time to getting round to writing this one up because initially my love for the film was so intimidatingly strong I couldn't even form coherent sentences. When you look elsewhere on the internet and discover...shall we say...''lukewarm'' reviews of Paiyaa, you may wonder if I am on crack or just if my taste is incredibly questionable. I assure you: I am not on crack.

First a synopsis!

Paiyaa apparently loosely translates as “boy” - so the boy of the title is Shiva (Karthi), who at the start of the film is best described as a kind of a hipster slacker. He's too cool, for example, to hop on a bus that has stopped to let passengers board – he waits until it is moving (presumably because that makes him look more awesome). He's unemployed, but has a big group of friends that won't tolerate his slacking and who arrange a job interview for him.

Everything is looking good for Shiva thanks to his friends...until he falls in love with a girl (Tamannah) he sees at the bus-stop. He falls in love in an instant – a split second and he's smitten – and his love for the mystery girl puts his job interview in jeopardy. Fate is on Shiva's side when his path crosses with the mystery girl's sooner rather than later. Shiva goes to pick up a friend from the railway station but sees the mystery girl seemingly in distress, accompanied by her uncle. They mistake Shiva for a cab driver and enlist him to drive them from Bangalore to Chennai – a job Shiva eagerly accepts. En route to Chennai while filling the car with petrol, the mystery girl urges Shiva to drive off without her uncle, requesting, ultimately, that he take her to Mumbai.

And from here on in it's a ROAD TRIP MOVIE! Mystery girl is running from something – she won't tell Shiva just what it is. Shiva is increasingly secretly smitten with Mystery Girl, only he doesn't even know her NAME, and she thinks he's ACTUALLY a cab driver. And as the film and the road trip progress, it becomes apparent that there are people following Shiva and Mystery Girl, with motives of their own. Motives that basically involve Shiva having to do a LOT of kick-punching. WHICH IS AWESOME IF LIKE ME YOU LOVE A BIT OF VIOLENCE MIXED INTO YOUR ROMANCE (that sounds wrong, just imagine a less sick sounding sentence and you have the essence).

What I love the most about Paiyaa is that it's just...super romantic and filmi without erring too far into “Oh my god now I need to vomit” zone. Part of this is Karthi's performance – he's really good at the “dreamy in love” face and the “I'm so ecstatic I am with her” face. But it's the story too. For example: Shiva falls in love with his mystery girl (FINE, her name is Charu) in a split second when he sees her as he gets off the bus – but I totally buy it in filmi land – like cosmic fated love struck him like a lightning bolt.

And then Shiva gets totally believably annoying. He has a crush! and calls his friends at all hours to gush about her, and ask advice, and gush some more. 
 

I really really loved the way Shiva's relationship with his friends was portrayed throughout the film – how they help him get a job interview at the beginning, how Shiva is constantly calling various members of the group for advice during his road trip (or just to talk about Charu and how much he likes her), how they all complain about him but support him anyway. 

I also really liked how Priya (unless I totally missed something) is just a friend who happens to be a girl, rather than being someone's sister or girlfriend. I feel like it's weird I need to even notice that, but so often the token girl is “the sister” “the wife” or “the girlfriend”.

I also love the songs RIDICULOUSLY MUCH. Okay I admit. I am biased towards this film.

Here's the thing. I know I probably shouldn't love this film as much as I do. There is at least one glaringly obvious WTF moment of crackness (hint, if you've seen it: lipstick glitter car; umbrella), there are kind of gaping plot holes if you think about things too hard and OKAY YES I KNOW SOMEONE WILL POINT OUT TO ME THAT KARTHI IS NOT REALLY AS BLESSED IN THE DANCING DEPARTMENT AS MANY OF HIS SOUTHERN FILM INDUSTRY COLLEAGUES but

a) to address that last point first: I think his sometimes spazzy dancing is freaking adorable and also, shut up
b) EHHH SHUT UP! HATERS, I LOVE THIS FILM AND I AM THE FIRST TO ADMIT I TURN A BLIND EYE TO ITS FAULTS. See: full disclosure! Objectively, I know it's not a classic; subjectively, I DON'T CARE BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME AND LOVE FOR IT WILL LIVE IN MY HEART FOREVER.

(Further disclosure: Paiyaa was the first Karthi film I ever saw, and on the basis of this film I purchased every available film in his catalogue. When I say I love this film, I really mean it. It technically was my gateway drug – via my Karthi crush which I realise I haven't actually really documented in this blog, but rest assured, it flourishes in reality - into the mysterious alluring South, too, pre- the discovery of Bunny).