Podaa Podi

Plot

Arjun (Silambarasan), an animation artist living in London with his uncle (VTV Ganesh), meets Nisha (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar) in a London pub. She is an aspiring dancer who is living with her aunt Veena (Shobana). After going around together for a day, Nisha proposes a relationship, and Arjun agrees. Arjun hates Nisha attending salsa classes with her friend Mojo as her partner. However, he agrees to marry her.

After their marriage, Nisha makes it clear that she still wants to dance and enter the UK competition "Let's Dance", and make a career for herself. Arjun suddenly discovers that he is, at bottom, a "Pachai Thamizhan" who believes that a woman's place is in the home (preferably the kitchen, but she has the freedom to walk from one room to another if she wants). On the advice of his uncle, he impregnates her, so that she stays away from dancing.

The birth of their first child brings happiness to their family. They go to Hong Kong Disneyland for their babymoon. After they return, in a family conversation, Arjun's uncle mentions his "advice" of making Nisha pregnant so that she would not dance any more. Realising that the child was the result of Arjun’s cheap plan and not love towards her, Nisha walks out. Arjun tries to console her, but gets angry when she meets a friend who greets her with a hug. Arjun, who gets immediately jealous, goes and starts fighting with her friend, while she pleads him to stop. Nisha crosses the road with her baby, which is then suddenly killed by a car. Nisha and Arjun separate and live in sorrow. After several months, Arjun comes to Nisha and pleads her aunt to make her come back and says that if he ever has another child (which he definitely wants) it will be only with her.

She comes back, on the condition that she continues dancing. However during her practices she becomes self-conscious due to the things Arjun said to her. Her partner, Mojo, refuses to work with her so Arjun tries to convince him to come back. Arjun then ends up beating Mojo, so that she will be left without a partner and leave the competition. She convinces Arjun to be her partner, but his steps fail in the first round. Impressed by Nisha dancing skills, judges give her another chance, provided she changes her partner. Arjun convinces her to do a "kuthu" dance, which impresses the judges. But she is not happy, because they have to clear 14 rounds to win the competition. Suddenly, Arjun decides to impregnate her again. The film ends with both of them living with their new child.

Cast

Production

Vignesh Shivan made a short film and after getting Dharan to compose music for it; showed the film to producers, Gemini Film Circuit, and then to his childhood friend, Silambarasan and both parties agreed to collaborate to make it a feature film. The joint producers of the film, Shanaya Telefilms, released a series of posters in June 2008 publicising the film, while Silambarasan and Vignesh toured in Canada scouting for locations and agreeing a deal with Mayor Ron Stevens to film in Orillia and Toronto. In June 2008, reports emerged that Varalaxmi, daughter of prominent actor-politician Sarathkumar, would play the lead role in the film of a ballet dancer. For his look in the film, Silambarasan worked with Toni & Guy salon and for the initial photo shoot of the film in Mumbai, the producers had stylists from the international brand fly down in August 2008 to give him a new hair cut and styling for his hair. The title of the film went from Podaa Podi to Thiru Poda Thirumathi Podi, before the makers changed it back to the original title.

By December 2008, the film failed to start and reports emerged that Silambarasan would restart Kettavan, a film which he had stalled before. Poor weather in Canada initially delayed the production of the film, with Gemini Films making a statement in June 2009 that the film was not dropped, after media speculation. The film's delays led to Varalaxmi opting out of the film, with her father stating that he would decide when to launch her in the film industry. Subsequently, the film was temporarily put on hold with Silambarasan opting to prioritise other ventures.

The film resurfaced and finally began shoot in August 2010 in London and the team shot scenes in a 45-day schedule, with Silambarasan learning salsa for the film under the guidance of Jeffrey Vardon – other choreography was staged by Regan Shepherd The team also shot further scenes in Spain in April 2011, after Silambarasan had temporarily put the film on hold to finish the multi-starrer Vaanam. A song was filmed in Chennai in November 2011, with Santhanam and Premji Amaren making special appearances in the music video. The film went through further delays after Silambarasan committed schedules to finish Osthe and Vettai Mannan, with the film being touted as a Valentine's Day 2012 release. In January 2012, the actor left for the US to work on his studio album "The Love Anthem", resulting in his ongoing film projects getting postponed again. The final portion of the film is to be shot in a ten-day schedule in Macau, Hong Kong from 20 March 2012 onwards. Silambarasan's one-year-old nephew Samarth was revealed to play his son in the film. A song depicting the relationship between a father and son, written by Vaali and sung by Silambarasan himself, was shot with him and Samarth at Hong Kong Disneyland, making Podaa Podi the first Tamil film to be shot there.

Release and Reception

The film opened on 13 November 2012, becoming a Diwali release for the year along with Thuppakki and Ammavin Kaipesi. and was flopped at the box office.,

Critical reception

The Hindu's Malathi Ranganathan said: "More than half a dozen times in the film, the hero says, 'Very good Ma!' But you can’t say the same about PP."

Deccan Chronicle wrote: "'Poda Podi' has a promising storyline but it goes wayward, thanks to the imbalance in the approach of the director towards the script. It is the gender bias that mars the impact."

The Times of India's Sidharth Varma commented, "The story is lopsided at most times, titling towards the man's point-of-view".

Trade website Nowrunning.com’s reviewer Haricharan Pudipeddi rated the movie . "Pray to god that he blesses you with immense energy and patience to sit through this disappointing film", he said.

Rating the movie, Rediff.com's Pavithra Srinivasan said: "Despite Varu's great performance, Podaa Podi ends in a disappointing fashion".

Sify.com praised Varalaxmi’s performance. "Despite the risk of being overshadowed by STR, Varalakshmi is the big surprise here as she makes a promising debut and brings alive her character with not just those smart lines, but with the kind of confidence and candour", the review said.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack and film score for Podaa Podi is composed by Dharan Kumar. In April 2010, Dharan stated that the soundtrack album would consist of six tracks, further adding that the film's lead actor Silambarasan had sung two songs and that composer-singer Yuvan Shankar Raja would also sing one of the songs. The album finally features eight tracks, including an instrumental, while Silambarasan has sung three songs, of which two were penned by him; a song by Yuvan Shankar Raja was not featured. The title track had been sung by Benny Dayal and actress-singer Andrea Jeremiah. Besides Silambarasan, director Vignesh Shivan had penned the lyrics for four songs, while Na. Muthukumar and Vaali had written each one song.

The audio rights were acquired by Sony Music India. A rough version of the track "Love Pannlama Venama" was leaked on the Internet in 2009 and went viral. An official complete version of the track was re-released by Sony Music India as a single for direct download a month prior to the official audio release for promotional purpose. The entire album was released direct to stores on 10 October 2012.

Critical reception

Behindwoods wrote:"The music perfectly complements the fact that it is a dance based romance flick [sic]The album‘s breezy songs are also impressive. Dharan is bound to get a good break with Podaa Podi".