Once More Movie Review:

There is a saying that no soul will go through more pain than it can bear. But what happens when the pain becomes so deeply ingrained that bearing it starts feeling easier than letting go? Love, after all, does not always leave behind memories. Sometimes, it leaves behind habits, creates inhibitions, and fear of feeling it again. The idea of finding love after heartbreak, therefore, is less about discovering someone new and more about rediscovering a part of oneself that was lost along the way. Once More attempts to explore this familiar emotional terrain. In what could have been a sweet journey of the protagonist finding himself by taking the risk of losing heart, the film loses track of what it meant to do.

Once More introduces Raghu (Arjun Das) as a civil engineer who mostly keeps things to himself as he steps into the eighth year of his heartbreak. Enters Anjali (Aditi Shankar), his college junior, who takes on the assignment of making him believe in love again.

Subtlety is not Once More's strong suit, and that is not a problem. The placement of captions like "Healing is a process" and "When life gives you second chances, take it" at certain junctures is on your face. But after a point, you kinda expect such visual hints. What was also not a problem was the predictability. Every promotional material hinted at the hero falling in love again after being heartbroken in his previous relationship. More often than not, executing the simple things can be perplexing as opposed to coming up with complex, mind-bending stories. In films like Once More, the flashback is expected to act as the anchor that holds together scenes before and after the sequence. Making the predictability sweeter is an art. Just like the texts mentioned above, the makers should have subjected the hero to hearing the name Indra randomly or some of her mannerisms in someone, or even Anjali, for that matter. Such basic rule-of-thumb scenes for 'giving love a second chance' kind of films are shockingly absent.

Director: Vignesh Srikanth

Cast: Arjun Das, Aditi Shankar, Sona Oliackal

Also, work and time needed to go into spaces where the protagonist gradually budges to feel the L word again (Like in Mella Thirandhathu Kadhavu or Raja Rani). The 'sidu moonji' Raghuvaran discovering his smile after several years required more reassurance than the antics of Anjali. With the first half breezing through occasional bumps, all that the film required from thereon was a bare-minimum decent flashback. Not only did that remain elusive, but poor writing of the flashback forces questions on the film's fundamental basis. Nothing undoes a romantic drama like doubts about the protagonist's emotional trauma. With the film set in 2024 and the flashback in 2016, there seems to be no plausible explanation as to why Raghu or Indra (Sona Oliackal) did not contact each other all these years. With Indra telling Raghu on her re-entry into his life that she had been keeping tabs on him and wanted to meet him, knowing he is going to get hitched, you wonder if she is some sadist judge like in The Truman Show. The mostly middling second half gets occasional facelift from Hesham's songs.

There is no doubt that the qualities Once More assigns to its humans --- constant vacillation, excessive sweetness, and wallowing --- are commonplace and can be found in almost everyone in varying degrees. But the situations writers place these characters in stretch these qualities unrealistically thin and throw all caution to the wind. Of course Raghu's aloofness does move you, but it looks like the makers weren't moved enough that they decided to trivialise his pain in the second half. Before you mouth Haasini, Raghu calls Anjali the Santosh Subramaniam heroine and sets the stage for what Aditi does through her. Aditi does justice to Anjali. But she can only do that much when the writing takes half-hearted effort to flesh out the character well. When the film takes a serious turn towards the final act, Anjali says why she loves Raghu, and that completes the convenient character-writing assignment for this film. You have an Indra, who has been observing Raghu's life from afar through all his hardships, only to talk to him when he is about to get married. And then there is Anjali, an otherwise outspoken girl, who decided to confess her love only when she accidentally gave Raghu a ride. She too knows what he has been going through since college.

Once More is a classic case of strong foundation with a shaky follow-up. With a promising start of love knocking on the doors again, some good music and scenes that could easily be labelled cringey (romance can be cringey and it's fine), the film loses steam when it forays into Raghu's elaborate but broad-stroked flashback. Thereafter, the narrative wears a weak conflict to arrive at a 'feel-good (read: convenient)' ending.