Parimala & Co

Parimala & Co 

is a comedy crime thriller whodunit movie. The cast includes Jayaram, Urvashi, Yogi Babu, Sanjana from the Vadhandhi web series, Ananthika Sanilkumar, Mysskin, Sandy, Singampuli, Bugs, and many others. Since it is a Tamil movie, the list is quite long. Anyway, let us see how my experience of watching this movie was.

According to the story, Parimala and Sudhandhiram have two daughters named Madhumitha and Parasakthi. They live in a rented house in Chennai. Then there is a troublesome fellow named Varghese who keeps forcing them to marry Madhumitha to him. He is the kind of person who makes even the audience angry while watching the movie. Every conversation he has with anyone ends with threats and bullying. He is one of those people who walk around with the attitude of Who is bigger than me here? A complete nuisance. Everything he does makes us seriously wonder whether someone should just kill him. While writing this itself, I could hear Styles Chinna Vivek's voice in my head asking Should we kill this fellow? That is exactly why I am saying this. Varghese is the kind of man who makes entire families wish he would disappear. The stalking he does towards Madhumitha crosses every limit and makes us feel like tearing through the screen and getting rid of him ourselves.

Then one day, Varghese is found dead. At Madhumitha's house, everyone openly asks each other Did you killed him? But until the very end of the movie, they keep suspecting one another. If the whole town wanting him dead is one thing, everyone who suffered because of him wanting him dead is another. He is that horrible. So figuring out who actually killed him is not easy.

In this movie, every time Urvashi says a dialogue, there is a loud teeth grinding sound effect from Jayaram in irritation. They have used it so often that it becomes tiring, almost like the laughter track that keeps playing in the background of a sitcom. There is apparently a statistic that Jayaram may have spoken more in the movie's promotional interviews than the number of times he grinds his teeth in the film. During the Panchathanthiram days, Urvashi as Jayaram's pair worked perfectly. But now, whenever Urvashi talks, we ourselves feel like grinding our teeth. Because of that, Jayaram's performance gets buried. Whenever he starts saying something thoughtful, Urvashi overlaps and interrupts. By then, we are too busy reacting to the teeth grinding sound. How are we supposed to pay attention to Jayaram's dialogue? As far as I know, except for the movies where he played a villain, I have enjoyed almost every Jayaram film. But I could not enjoy this one for the reasons mentioned above.

Stockholm Syndrome does not necessarily mean someone has to be locked inside a room. Is the movie trying to say that if a man stalks a woman so much that even her family starts thinking about killing him, she will eventually fall in love with him? I honestly do not understand. Ananthika's character is very weak. On the opposite side is Sanjana as the elder sister Parasakthi. My reaction was What, Sanjana is playing an elder sister? That shocked me more than the twist involving her in the climax. She still looks like such a cute little kid. How are you calling her an elder sister? Anyway, let us leave that.

Even though there are many comedians in the movie including Jayaram, Urvashi, Yogi Babu, Singampuli, and Bugs, the comedy does not feel forced. It comes naturally through the flow of the story, through small moments and expressions that genuinely make us laugh. Especially the scene where they subscribe to Sun NXT just to watch Papanasam made me burst out laughing. It felt exactly like something many of us would do in real life.

As for Sandy and Mysskin, I could not stop feeling irritated whenever they appeared on screen. I honestly do not know why.

Watch the movie and tell me if you felt the same way. Until then, see you in the next post.

See ya!