Thalaivii Review: This The Best Film Of Kangana Ranaut’s Career, Breathed Life With Her Performance

Cast: Kangana Ranaut, Arvind Swami, Nassar, Bhagyashree, Samuthikarani, Raj Arjun, Jisshu Sengupta

Director: AL Vijay

Rating: 4 stars (out of 5) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

The film is made in Tamil-Telugu-Hindi. Desi biopic films often come across as person-worship and so is Thalaivii. You cannot know the full truth of a personality from biopic films. Thalaivii narrates important events in Jaya’s (Kangana Ranaut) life, where she becomes an actress in Tamil films, surrendering to her mother’s (Bhagyashree) wishes, in order to have a regular income in the household. Jaya will soon be seen in the big star M.G. The film gets mixed with Ramachandran (Aurobindo Swamy). Both do many films together. Jaya is enamored of MGR and MGR also likes his candid nature. Such a relationship begins between the two, which cannot be given any one name. Which has many dimensions.

Thalaivii Review: Story

The first part of the film depicts Jayalalithaa’s struggle and then her journey to become a superstar. The film has a lot of focus on the love story of him and MG Ramachandran. Let us tell you that when Jayalalithaa came to the industry, MG Ramachandran was already a superstar. In the first part, Jayalalithaa’s flirtation and the impact of her decisions on her family and career is shown. The second part of the film is on the rise of Jayalalithaa’s political career. Her self-respect as a woman and her fight with her political rivals make the film interesting. The unfortunate incident that happened with him in the assembly has also been mentioned in the film. Jayalalithaa’s controversial entry into politics and then the politics of Tamil Nadu and her emergence as a powerful force in the AIADMK was quite a struggle, which is brilliantly depicted in the film.

Nearly a decade passes. Due to increasing age, Jaya has almost stopped getting films. Then Jaya meets MGR again. He asks her to join his party. Jaya refuses but an incident prompts her to change her mind. The story takes a new turn. A new Jaya appears. Jaya’s return to MGR’s life is not easy. But Jaya, who has been two-four due to life’s struggles since childhood, is made of some other soil. She wrestles the Mahabharata against the people who are trying to bring her down and eventually emerges as the victor.

Jaya’s life was an open book and nothing is hidden from those interested in cinema-politics. The common man is also more or less familiar with his name and work. But director Vijay’s Thalaivii comes across as the story of a strong woman who fights for self-respect and gets the status of ‘Amma’ in the political world of men. But parallel to this fight, it also brings before us a woman in whom a tender heart beats for the desire of true and pure love. She loves a married man unconditionally. Unselfishly, she surrenders herself to him.

Thalaivii Review: The Review

Thalaivii is completely Kangana Ranaut’s film. She has played the character of Jaya from a 16-year-old teenager to middle age very diligently and beautifully. His physique also changes with time on the screen and this is rarely seen in Hindi films. It is commendable. Surely Kangana is a strong actress of her era, but she has done her harm due to political controversies. Arvind Swami is excellent as MGR and his PA Veerappan turned Raj Arjun leaves a mark everywhere. Nasir has done justice to his role here as always. If you want to get the feel of the bygone era on the big screen, watch the life of J. Jayalalithaa on the big screen and have cinema halls open, you can go for it. But to compete with it on the small screen, there is a webseries Queen (2019) on MX Player. It is not a biopic of Jaya directly but inspired by her life and based on incidents.

It is true that one’s entire life cannot be reduced to a film of two to three hours, but not choosing the necessary events is the author’s own politics. Thalaivii does not bring up any such thing, which people do not know about Jaya. The writer of Bahubali films, K.V. Thalaivii is written by Vijendra Prasad and Rajat Arora. He has captured the nuances of film and South Indian culture of the 1960-70 era. Director Vijay has successfully brought the words out of the pen to the screen. The first part of the film is on Jaya’s personal-film life and does not attract as much as the second. In which Jaya emerges as an iron-woman and politician. The Hindi version’s dialogues are written by Rajat Arora.

Thalaivii Review: Star Performances

Well, whatever happens to Thalaivi, Kangana Ranaut, who has won the National Award four times, seems to be achieving another ‘successful’ position on the acting front. Kangana played the role of Jayalalithaa in Thalaivi. Even though the film is being said to be a biopic of Jayalalithaa, many important events related to her life have been omitted in it. The allegations of corruption against him and the incident of going to jail have also not been given prominence. In the film, Jayalalithaa’s film innings and the difficult situations she faced in politics have mostly been kept in focus. All the reputed reviews that have come so far have almost the same ‘valuation’. Kangana’s work in the role of Jayalalithaa is being highly appreciated.

It is not only Kangana in the film. But there is also the character of Arvind Swami and Raj Arjun, who compete with Kangana Ranaut’s acting from their respective levels. Kangana worked hard for this film, whose glimpse is visible in the film. She has tried to adapt the age gap and the seriousness of her personality to her character, and she has been successful. Filmmakers can hardly find a better actor than Arvind Swamy in MG Ramachandran. Raj Arjun can be proud of his acting in the character of RM Veerappan. He can definitely get his identity not only from ‘Secret Superstar’ but from ‘Thalaivi’. Nassar has done better in the character of M Karunanidhi.

Thalaivii Review: Technical Aspects

It is a common tendency of a viewer to cast a villain as the opposite of the hero. The faces of opposition party leaders and M Karunanidhi after Jayalalithaa’s entry into politics look exactly like the traditional villains of a Bollywood film. That is, the fantasy has been crafted with such an artistic vision that the mere walking on the screen gives a sense of its reality. The credit behind this can be seen not of director Vijay but to other characters played apart from Jayalalithaa. Apart from Kangana, this film will also be remembered for its supporting cast. However, apart from ‘Chali-Chali’ as the music in the film, there is no other song which is worthy of enticing the mind. Many of the background scores narrated in support of the scenes show a zonal effect, as if it was made keeping in mind the audience only from the South. It is difficult to make a distinction between the texture and texture of the film setup of the 60s-70s, as it was an era of vivid colours, which were taken care of while writing the screen play. Overall, the story of the film moves towards its end, somewhere between better in some aspect and average in some aspect.

Thalaivii Review: The Last Words

Overall, there seems to be a good atmosphere about Kangana’s Thalaivi. The responses will be helpful in creating a better word of mouth. But despite having good content, the box office fate of Akshay Kumar’s Bellbottom was not good. In the Hindi region, the entire responsibility of Thalaivii is on Kangana’s shoulders. The film has also been released in Tamil and Telugu along with Hindi. Thalaivii stars Arvind Swamy, Nassar and Raj Arjun in pivotal roles along with Kangana. Thalaivii is directed by L Vijay.