Bachelor is a film written and directed by Sathish Selvakumar and produced by G Dilli Babu under the banner Axess Film Factory. The film has GV Prakash and Divya Bharathi in the lead roles while Bagavathi Perumal, Munishkanth, Mysskin and others play supporting roles. It has music by Siddhu Kumar and cinematography by Theni Eswar.
Darling (GV Prakash) is a good for nothing guy who has just come to Bangalore in search of a job. He lives in a mansion along with many bachelors. During a party he meets Subbu (Divya Bharathi) and they soon get into a live-in relationship. Unexpectedly she becomes pregnant which creates a rift between them, and what happens after that forms the rest of the plot.
Bachelor has a premise that is rarely explored in Tamil cinema. How often have we seen a toxic relationship written where we empathize with the female lead than the male lead? The film chooses this very setup and has a terrific first half that has very little flab. The writing is organic and the staging is lovely. The rhythm the film has is also perfect.
However once the second half begins, the screenplay becomes stagnant and it seems like the film is confused about where it is heading to. There is a courtroom sequence which is not that engaging and the other portions are filled with cinematic liberties. A random police officer appears out of nowhere and does not have much to do with the plot.
Among the performers, GV Prakash does a fine neat job but it is debutant Divya Bharathi who steals the show. She looks stunning and emotes well. Once Munishkanth enters, his counters and chemistry with Bagavathi Perumal save the sinking second half to an extent. The film also has a runtime of a little less than 3 hours, which affects the engagement. A few scenes in the second half could have been trimmed to overcome this problem.
Siddhu Kumar shines with his BGM that's loud in certain parts but effective for most of the runtime. Especially the mass scenes involving GV Prakash are superbly amped up. He shows a lot of promise and is definitely a composer to look out for in upcoming films. Theni Eswar's cinematography complements the director's vision properly and there's nothing to complain.
In the initial portions the film shows the perspective of Subbu in a sensitive way and makes us root for her emotions. But somewhere along the way, the film discards her character, and focusses only on Darling, thereby making us root for the wrong character. Had the film remained honest to what it set out to do, the product would have been much better.
Overall, Bachelor is a well made film with outstanding technical aspects like music and cinematography. It had a lot of potential and it seemed like the film made right use of it till the first half. But a less engaging second half results in Bachelor ending up as a middling film with a good message.