Taramani – A film which I loved and hated all at once. A film which starts off with great promise but falls way short of being one of those memorable love stories which we will cherish forever.

Ram gets his women right which deserves a huge round of applause but he gets his men horribly wrong which sort of nullifies the joy that we get from celebrating the imperfections of the women on-screen. The men are half boils who don’t deserve to exist.

The first half sets it up so beautifully but the second half goes on and on and on until it exhausted me. You know your destination is Taramani and board your mode of transport in the hope of reaching there soon but the driver travels the entire city before reaching Taramani instead of opting for the shortest route.

The problem with Taramani is that it deviates too much from the central conflict with too many sub plots which convey too many things all at once.

I find it hard to understand why our creators find it very difficult to write roles where you don’t have to pull down the characters from one gender to elevate the other gender. Why can’t the cry for an equal footing translate on screen too? 

Yuvan’s music is soulful though I am not a big fan of the composer rendering most of his songs. Sreekar Prasad could have done a better job by chopping off scenes which stretch endlessly. The cinematography by Theni Easwar is eye catching. Ram’s voice overs pack a punch where he is brutally honest regarding the things that matter to him.

Andrea gets a meaty role and does a decent job. The debutant Vasanth Ravi tries to do what he can to salvage a half baked character sketch.

The second half screams self-indulgence and that’s where it falls way short of what it could have been. Ram the director impresses in parts but is largely unsure of the journey he wants to undertake. 

Taramani is a plausible decent one-time watch – Nothing more nothing less.