Middle Class Movie Review:

Tunnel vision would be the accurate diagnosis for filmmakers who exaggeratedly romanticise rural life as 'trouble-free' and 'stress-free,' when compared with city life. There is nothing inherently bad about wanting to live a silent life in a sleepy village away from the competitive scramble. But whitewashing all the problems of living in a village and giving it a utopian makeover is utter dishonesty. Kishore M Ramalingam's Middle Class is one such film.

Middle Class begins with Karl Marx (Munishkanth) being jolted from his rural dream by his short-tempered wife, Anbarasi (Vijayalakshmi), who brings him back to reality. One that has him reluctantly accepting the nine-to-five slog. They have two children, who are labelled as the reasons for continuing this game of survival. On one really good day, the family gets an 'open sesame' moment that transforms their life. What happens to the family once they discover that the transformation comes with teeth forms the core of Middle Class.

Middle Class' primary problem is its black-and-white viewpoint of ascribing villainy to Chennai (read city) and benevolence to a sontha oor, or native village. Though the film doesn't openly propagandise Chennai hatred, there is a constant 'Indha Madraskaaranungale' taunt throughout the film. The situations in the film also don't justify the bigotry against Chennai. Misfortunes befall the lead characters owing to their own follies and greed, and they aren't being duped in any way by the 'Madraskaaranunga'. This adds to our gripe about the already one-note characters. With that being the case, these characters never really win our empathy at any point during the runtime. To make things worse, the leads don't even stick to their unidimensionality. Anbarasi is introduced to us as a matter-of-fact person who doesn't want to spoil her children's lives by shifting to her husband's village. Moments later, she is easily swayed by her school-going girl's idea of starting a YouTube channel to make a quick buck. The word 'incoherence' screams throughout and is unbearable even for a runtime of just over two hours.

Cast: Munishkanth, Vijayalakshmi, Radha Ravi, KPY Kureshi

Director: Kishore M Ramalingam

The actions of the characters are meant only to mechanically move the narration from one point to another, with no concrete emotional reasons. Marx is chased out of his home due to a grave escalation, only for Anbarasi to come looking after him in the next scene and take him home. What transpired in between? We don't know... What is the next move they agreed on to undo the mistake? The screenplay is suspiciously silent on this. The film is aplenty with such scenes. Logical conveniences aren't tolerable either. Anbarasi is repulsed by Marx's father, Sivapunniyam (Vela Ramamurthy), but Marx has no reason not to respect him. But he, too, keeps his father's belongings in the attic. That's why his sudden admiration for his father, and his desire to buy a piece of land in his village were pretentious to a fault.

The investigation scenes in the second half were drab and wayward. We could sense the fatigue of the writer when he seeks refuge in the now-stale 'CCTV footage' tradition of Tamil cinema. He realises, like we did, that this make-believe foolery cannot be extended anymore. The inconsistent tonality, too, fails the film, especially in the second half, where things grow tense. A serious situation is thrown at you, and what follows is a shoddy attempt at levity, and this cycle repeats till the end credits roll. Performances can do no good to a contrived story like this one. Every time Marx talks in frustration, his intonation reminds us of his comedy scenes. We only get to see the haranguing side of Anbarasi. There is no information on what she could do for the family in a crisis, other than kicking her husband out of the house. We try but can't take her seriously, even when she randomly gives a reasoning for her nagging and side hustles.

There is no bigger disservice to the rural people than to paint a rosy picture of their life and brush all their struggles under the carpet. It is a cruel joke on the villagers to proclaim rustic life a silver bullet solution to every trouble. As Marx peacefully rests on his farm, thinking that all troubles in his life are a thing of the past, he fails to realise that his land could be encroached on for real estate, rains may fail him, his crops may not find a proper procurement centre, or, in the worst case, his land could be acquired for a government project! We are tempted to jolt him from his dreamy thinking, like how Anbarasi does in the first scene.