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Cheliyaa
Cheliyaa links:
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Jeevi
rating: 3.25/5
Punchline: Perfect love despite imperfections!
Genre: Romance
Type: bilingual film (Tamil - Kaatru Veliyidai)
Banner: Sri Venkateswara creations & Madras Talkies
Runtime: 147 minutes
Censor Certificate: U
Release date: 7 April, 2017
Theater watched: Screen 1, Prasads multiplex, Hyderabad
Cast: Karthi, Aditi Rao Hydari, KPAC Lalitha, Shraddha Srinath, Rukmini Vijaykumar, Delhi Ganesh, RJ Balaji, Sivakumar Ananth, Vipin Sharma, Harish Raj, Mir Sarwar etc
Music: AR Rahman
Cinematography: S Ravi Varman
Art: Amaran
Action: Sham Kaushal
Choreography: Brinda
Dialogues: Kiran
Lyrics: Sirivennela Seetharama Sastry
Editor: Sreekar Prasad
Story, screenplay & direction: Mani Ratnam
Producers: Mani Ratnam & Shirish
Cheliyaa links: |
VC (Karthi) works for Indian Air Force and is a fighter pilot in Sri Nagar. Dr. Leela Abraham (Aditi Rao Hydari) is a doctor posted in a civil hospital in Sri Nagar. VC is her first patient and they fall in love. Their relationship is tumultuous due to self-centric nature and chauvinistic attitude of VC. In one of his missions during Kargil war, VC is caught live by Pakistani army. Rest of the story is all about how he jailbreaks and amends for his mistakes in love.
Actors: It’s a complex character to play for Karthi as it has character deficiencies (violent streak, male chauvinism etc). Karthi has suited the role well though he looks odd without mustache. His acting in this film in uninhibited! Aditi Rao Hydari steals the show with subtle expressions. She embodies the pain of a woman who knows that he is not right, yet falls deeply in love with. Rukhmini Vijaya Kumar is good as heroine’s buddy. Delhi Ganesh is the only familiar face apart from the main leads in this movie. 
Story - screenplay - direction: Kargil war and jailbreak is just used as a backdrop. Cheliyaa is basically a love story between an imperfect guy and a perfect girl. She loves him selflessly with all her heart and soul and he just loves himself! Mani Ratnam makes sure that he narrates the story with a lot of tenderness and by not missing any of nuances we see in his love stories. Cheliyaa is a film that is sketched on the canvas of world cinema. Two films that came to my mind while watching this film are Love Story (1970 American film) and Top Gun (I am talking about the feel though there is no inspiration from these films). A hero need not be perfect and girls mostly don't fall for perfect guys. The proposal scene by hero in this film is the best scene when he proposes to her indirectly after a heated argument (and not to forget the follow up scene where car is covered by snow and the couple cuddle as car wiper clears the snow). Most of the film is narrated in a flashback mode in a typical Mani Ratnam’s style. Though narration is slow, Mani Ratnam has made sure that the emotions are brought out excellently. 
Other departments: Mani Ratnam is at his best in technical departments for this film. AR Rahman’s music is divine. None of the songs we listened to before release are presented fully on the screen (except for Hamsaro). There is only one duet (Maimarupa) and all others are situational songs. Jugni song is not shot (or edited out). It’s just used for a few seconds. There is no music for Allei Allei song in the movie. Background music is excellent. Cinematography by Ravi Varman is of world class stand. The locations of Kashmir are spell-binding (though part of it is shot in Belgrade, Serbia). The photography is so realistic in some of the scenes. There is a scene where hero takes heroine out on a date in his glider (with an engine). Instead of showing as a long shot, the director has shown the close up scenes of lead pair and you can see the extreme shaking of camera at the time of takeoff and it becomes placid once takeoff is complete. Dialogues written by Kiran are good and are characterized by chaste Telugu. Sirivennela writes beautiful lyrics and they don’t appear as dubbing songs due to the coining of right words by Sirivennela. Editing by Sreekar Prasad is smooth. Production design by Sharmista Roy is of top-notch quality. Production values are excellent.