Payanigal Gavanikkavum is a film written by Ajeesh P Thomas and directed by SP Shakthivel. The film has Vidharth, Karunakaran, and Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli in the lead roles while Masoom Shankar, Premkumar and others play supporting roles. The film is the Tamil remake of the Malayalam film Vikrithi. The music is composed by Shanmath Nag, and the cinematography is handled by S Pandikumar.
Ezhilan (Vidharth) and his wife Tamil (Lakshmi Priyaa) are persons with hearing and speech impairment. Their daughter is admitted in a hospital, and Ezhilan tends to attend to her for a couple of days. While returning back home, he falls asleep inside the metro due to fatigue, and Antony (Karunakaran), a social media addict who is Ezhilan's co-passenger, takes a photo of it and posts it on social media. He also labels Ezhilan as 'a drunkard in Chennai Metro' which turns Ezhilan's happy life upside down. The rest of the film deals with how Ezhilan manages to come out of it, and how Antony deals with the guilt caused by his actions.
When you look at the film's storyline, it is very simple, has a good emotional base by itself, and at the same time, is wafer-thin. A man and his family get trolled everywhere because a person unknown to him made a meme out of him. The simpler solution to get out of this is - filing a complaint with the cyber crime or the other way to get out of this is messaging the account to take down the picture and post an apology for the misinformation spread, but this story deals with a protagonist who is not aware of this process.
The film however steers clear of all these logical possibilities, and the plot gets stretched into a slightly less than two hours film. It takes almost half the runtime for the film to jump into the main plot conflict. Till then the proceedings are too generic. The resolution to the plot is also predictable. But what makes the film watchable is the simple nature.
Every character you see is someone around you in real life. The costumes, the camerawork, the acting and even the storyline makes sure that there is space for the audience to teleport themselves into the film and watch everything from close quarters. That's how relatable the film's setting is. Had the staging been a bit better, Payanigal Gavanikkavum would have worked wonders.
Vidharth as Ezhilan, Lakshmi Priyaa as Tamil - the two hearing and speech impairment, steal the show with their solid performances. The role seems like a cakewalk for Vidharth, and his performance in the climax might make the audience's eyes wet. Among the other actors, despite a few of his comedies lacking the timing, Karunakaran comes up with a convincing performance.
Shanmath Nag's background score and songs are melodious and delightful to the ears. The songs don't interrupt the narrative at any point and gel well with the director's vision and the film. The cinematography and editing suits the film's theme.
Overall, Payanigal Gavanikkavum is a simple drama with a good social message. The message is delivered on your face at many places, but nevertheless, the performances and the mood created keep you invested. A decently engaging film that could have been better at a lot of places!