‘Maareesan’ movie review: Vadivelu, Fahadh Faasil steal the show in this slow-burn suspense flick

What do we like most about Vadivelu?

If you said his comical expressions and reactions, you’d be mostly right. From Friends to Vetrikodi Kattu, Vadivelu’s body language and facial expressions when delivering funny lines have filled awkward silences in many drawing rooms as they play out on television.

This continues to date on Tamil comedy channels.

In Maareesan, his latest feature, written by V. Krishna Moorthy and directed by Sudheesh Sankar, Vadivelu sheds all those strengths. Here, he’s Velayudham, an Alzheimer’s patient who has largely forgotten his past. In his introduction sequence, he is chained and calling out to someone whom he thinks is his son.

Only, he isn’t. The stranger is Dhayalan (Fahadh Faasil), a goofy small-time thief who has broken in. In his mind, this is a quick job — a man tied to a chain and an empty house. But there’s money…if only he spent more time with this man short of memory.

The two decide to go on a road trip, and that changes things drastically. While the first half is a slow burn, reminiscent of many Malayalam films for its pace and sweet nothing-ness, an arresting interval block sets things up nicely for a thriller.

The twists are many, but they all arrive slowly, like a character’s change of intention and the subsequent actions. Do we really know someone fully? Maareesan explores this aspect in good measure by taking up a protagonist who has dementia. That itself is a triumph — because forgetfulness is a big ordeal. What is life without memories, the lead character asks nonchalantly, and you feel sympathetic to his state.

And what is it about FaFa, as Fahadh Faasil is popularly called? How do all these mischievous shades of grey in the universe attract this actor? Slightly taking off from his performance in his Malayalam film Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, a film that kickstarts with him swallowing a necklace that he stole, Fahadh once again aces the goofy part in Maareesan, using his shrug-off mannerisms to good effect. His camaraderie with Vadivelu — a collab that started with Mari Selvaraj’s Maamannan— is heartfelt. We wish more films featuring them roll out.

Fahadh Faasil and Vadivelu in a still from ‘Maareesan’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

When the first promo material of Maareesan came out, I wondered if it would be another Meiyazhagan, that is, a film in which two people get to know each other better. Maareesan has that aspect going for it in the first half, but in far less impactful measure. The atmosphere-building is leisurely done; the two keep going off on rides and taking loo breaks. We keep getting scenes after scenes with the two, with very little happening. Sometimes I wish Vadivelu would just break into an impromptu comedy sequence, but he stays strictly in character, as he must.

A flashback could have been trimmed, a song plays out for eternity, and characters other than the leads are less explored. But when it’s a film about forgetfulness that cheekily weaves in a popular Ilaiyaraaja number — the lyrics of which go “Nethu oruthara paarthom…paarthu oruthara maranthom” — it deserves a look in.

Maareesan is currently running in theatres