Kaatru Veliyidai is the rare love story where at the end of its two-hour-plus running time, you are most likely to feel no empathy or sympathy for its hero and heroine, unless, of course, you are a Mani Ratnam character yourself. Because, only characters inside Mani Ratnam's head can make a stab at understanding why a (supposedly) sane woman would want to stay in an abusive relationship with a first-rate jerk for years. Wait. Actually they cannot. Because in the film when a character wonders this question out loud, he gets the answer, "It's love. It's like that".

Here's the thing: Love is the laziest excuse for a screenwriter when he or she has nothing to explain character motivation and this kind of shenanigans can only be pulled off in Indian commercial cinema. A corollary to this: Providing no internal logic for your characters' actions does not make for an intelligent screenplay. Withholding answers to unlock multiple levels of a narrative is one thing, which Stanley Kubrick was a master in, and simply writing a paper-thin character-sketch and passing it off as a screenplay is another which is what Mani Ratnam has done with Kaatru Veliyidai.

(SPOILERS AHEAD: READ FURTHER ONLY IF YOU HAVE WATCHED THE FILM OR YOU DON'T WANT TO WATCH IT)

A little plot-synopsis before we go further. Varun Chakrapani aka VC (Karthi) is an army pilot. Leela (Aditi Rao Hydari) is a doctor who meets VC in Srinagar at the time of the Kargil war. VC is a complete 'Dark triad': he is severely narcissistic, exhibits a cavalier disregard for other people's, including his partner's, feelings and well-being. He will say whatever he has to to get his way. After VC and Leela begin dating, VC, time and again, humiliates, belittles and physically pushes around Leela but Leela tolerates everything and continues to stay with VC.

During a mission, VC's jet is shot down in Pakistan and he is captured and jailed. While in captivity, he begins to feel remorseful about his attitude towards Leela and then it is his love for Leela - or so Mani Ratnam would like us to believe - that motivates him to break out of a Pakistani jail not once, but twice in the most outlandish way possible... seriously, the final escape sequence feels like a 20-minute-long ad for Mountain Dew but let us not digress.

Kaatru Veliyidai is not at all a complicated film unlike what Mani Ratnam fanboys, no offense, would like to believe. Looking from the lens of craft, Kaatru Veliyidai is a gorgeous, stylish film, Well, of course, Mani has assembled one of the best filmmaking teams currently working in India - DOP Ravi Varman (Barfi!), editor A Sreekar Prasad who needs no introduction, production designer Sharmishta Roy and the maestro himself, AR Rahman. Mani Ratnam is still India's finest director of song sequences only challenged by Sanjay Leela Bhansali for the top spot. Kaatru Veliyidai is a technical marvel, without a doubt.

Now, looking from the lens of content...

An abusive brute of a hero (or let's use the buzzword you were looking for - 'misogynist') does not necessarily make a bad, misogynistic film. That happens when the filmmaker tries to justify and make a hero out of an indecent man which is what Aanand L Rai did with Raanjhanaa; he made Kundan a martyr for love.

Kaatru Veliyidai's failure lies elsewhere. Mani Ratnam believed that a romantic relationship between a man so heinous as VC and a woman as regular and commonplace as Leela would make for great cinema. It would have, had Mani given a reason for the proceedings. Perhaps, it's the sex. Maybe, there's something in Leela's childhood that makes her want men like VC. Even VC doesn't seem sincere about his love except for the time he screams "I love you, I love you, I love you" to make Leela believe that he is truly apologetic about his thuggish behaviour and what happens right after this scene? VC brings Leela along to his army friends and he declares, "See? Didn't I tell you she will come back? That's my girl. Will you ever find a girl like this? You guys owe me a single malt."

VC feels that men and women are made differently, a man's job is to hunt and a woman has to appear beautiful, first and foremost, before she sets out to do anything else. VC gives Leela a time and date to come to the marriage registrar's office and then stands her up. When Leela confronts him, it turns out that VC had totally forgotten about the appointment. Okay, a sexist and an inconsiderate man does not make the film so. Also, women can fall for such men and even continue to stay with them for years before they come to their senses or not. The problem is that Mani Ratnam could not make an engaging movie out of this.

A narrative movie does not work, most of the time, if there is a problem on the screenplay-level. Every character has a journey. At the start of the film, the character does not have something - it can be money, a prize, the key to the galaxy or love. The character has to now rise above himself or herself, defeat his/her baser tendencies, become a stronger, better person and finally get what he/she wanted and/or needed in the first place. This is how a character arc is completed.

Leela, throughout the film, is treated like a doormat not only by VC but also by the screenplay. Good for her she gets a great wardrobe though. VC, then, is the hero, the protagonist of Kaatru Veliyidai. This is established further when Mani makes a feeble attempt at tying up the loose ends in the film. VC, having escaped the clutches of Pakistan years ago, has since become a war-hero and has been roaming about, searching for Leela, and he thinks to himself, "After being captive, I have realised how to live with others, how to share a life, Leela." So, this is the character arc then: VC is a insert crass synonym for the male member, he falls in love with girl, continues to make her life hell, gets captured, is treated badly, comes back to his senses, escapes and becomes a changed man. If this is the crux of Kaatru Veliyidai (because it for sure ain't a love story 'cause there is no love to look at), even then Mani Ratnam has failed to do justice to his characters.

Looked at from every angle, apart from craft, Kaatru Veliyidai is a massive misfire, a colossal failure in filmmaking and the further you isolate the film from Mani Ratnam's legacy and oeuvre, the worse Kaatru Veliyidai will appear to be.

(The writer tweets as @devarsighosh.)

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