Idi Minnal Kadhal Movie Review: An interesting premise ruined by needless exaggerations

Writer-director Balaji Madhavan’s Idi Minnal Kadhal is a drama that revolves around a set of characters whose lives are connected through a traumatic event. This is a film where every emotion, music, and plot thread is dialled up to the hilt. Take Vincent Nakul’s vicious thug, Arul Pandian, for instance. He represents the 'Idi' in the title, the kind of person who beats people to a pulp and derives sexual pleasure from human smell. There is one scene in the film where he smells the bathing soap of a boy (eww) and decides to make the kid his own. Although it is not explicitly mentioned, it is heavily implied that he is a child molester. Everyone, from priests to prostitutes, fears Arul Pandian. Just the sound of his Bullet bike, which comes from afar, is enough to make an entire housing colony evacuate all of a sudden. However, Balaji still feels the need to highlight how evil Arul is by making him yell out his name each time he appears on the screen. “Arul Pandian daa,” says Vincent while showing his teeth whenever his character is about to do something bad. This streak of madness adds flavour to the character, but what the character needs is more depth.

Director: Balaji Madhavan

Cast: Ciby, Yasmin Ponnappa, Bhavya Trikha, Jay Adithya, Radha Ravi, Vincent Nakul

Now, let us look at child actor Jay Adithya’s Abhishek Jain. Abhishek represents the ‘Minnal’ in the title, apparently because he throws up tantrums and fires expletives even at those close to him, often at the slightest of provocations. He has a dysfunctional family, and his psychological issues stem from a lack of parental care. However, Balaji does not feel that this is enough characterisation to set up his arc. He also has to have a mental health issue like bipolar disorder. The writing dumbs the boy’s condition down to mere physical manifestations, thus depriving it of authenticity.

Then there is the ‘Kadhal’ part, the love angle between Ciby’s Haran and Bhavya Trikha's Janani. The romance is the weakest link in the film and the hardest one to root for because it shows the couple committing questionable deeds throughout. For example, Ciby plays a mental health specialist in the film who is waiting for a job trip to the US. What kind of mental health specialist puts a patient in a mobile home at a garage and runs the risk of exposing him to poisonous substances? How the couple’s love story ends up being intertwined with other characters forms the crux of the story.

The most interesting character in Idi Minnal Kadhal is Yasmin Ponnappa’s Anjali. At one point in the film, Anjali acts as a mother figure to Abhishek. It is rare for a film to treat a sex worker with so much dignity, especially when the same film has a police officer publicly humiliating another prostitute for no apparent reason except for making himself look evil. Yasmin performs the character with so much grace and gravitas, but unfortunately, she is not integral enough for the plot to save the film. The ensemble cast also includes the likes of Radha Ravi as Father Edwin and Balaji Shaktivel as a cop named Govindraj.

On the technical front, Sam CS unnecessarily amplifies the film’s emotions with a thundering background score, and Anthony’s edits deliver mostly underwhelming results. The same scenes repeat themselves over and over while adding very little narrative heft. At one point, a happy song in the film comes soon after a sad song. The film ties up a loose end with a predictable plot thread in the climax, which even makes a passing reference to HIV moments before the end credits start to roll up with an AIDS disclaimer. Oddly enough, there are no mentions of AIDS before the climax. Talk about dialling up everything; Idi Minnal Kadhal thrives on this.