Adida Melam (2016)

Adida Melam begins with a little boy being sent to prison for murder. The action cuts to a few years later and we are introduced to Saravanan (Abhay Krishna), a wedding planner, who lives with his mom (Urvashi) and uncle (Mayilsamy). His path crosses with that of Devaki (Abhinaya), who lies to him and uses him to get her friend married off in secret. Saravanan suffers a huge financial loss and Devaki tells him that she will repay his loans if he can stop her wedding to Manohar. He agrees but when Manohar offers him more money, he decides to let the wedding proceed. And on the eve of the wedding, he learns that Manohar — who is the little boy we were shown in the beginning — is planning to have his revenge on Devaki and so, to stop the event, he kidnaps her! The tone of Adida Melam is wildly inconsistent, swinging from melodrama to comedy, at times even in the same scene. A crucial character suffers a heart attack, a girl is cunningly sold off to a pimp, a supporting character turns into a murderer, a woman immolates herself, but if you have to go by the last half an hour, the film wants us to treat it only as a comedy. The jokes are rather silly, but the moments involving Urvashi, who realises the childishness of the material and plays to the gallery, work. But the director is hardly able to present a coherent narrative. Scenes just abruptly end or begin with no link in-between, and technically, the film feels amateurish. Even short films today have better cinematography and sound mixing. Thankfully, the film doesn't take itself seriously, and the only reason why we stay till the end is to find out how far the director can take the ridiculousness to.