Naane Varuven Review: This yet another brilliant film that highlights Dhanush’s mastery of choosing the right films and giving the very best. The sole reason Selvaraghavan’s Naane Varuven, which marks his reunion with Dhanush after ten years, succeeds is that it wasn’t well publicised. The absence of a trailer from the production team actually helped the movie make the desired impression and surprise viewers to a significant extent.
This is Selvaraghavan’s best work in recent years, and it offers a terrific thriller in a welcome change from the films he has been producing. Despite a second half that is a little too predictable, the movie manages to successfully combine several genres.
Prabhu and Kathir, twin brothers, are at the centre of the narrative (both played by Dhanush). After a string of occurrences, Prabhu and Kathir split up and start living separate, independent lives. Many years later, Prabhu is happily married and his daughter Sathya is the centre of his universe. He doesn’t want his love for his daughter to be shared, therefore he opposes the thought of having a second kid.
He starts having some strange occurrences in his home one day, and his daughter is impacted by them. He contacts a guru who is also a psychiatrist because he believes she is possessed. He recruits a group of young ghost-busters to assist him in saving his daughter, but he has no idea that he will discover something far more intriguing.
The main plot of the narrative is how the revelation causes him to run into his long-lost identical brother.
Full credit to Selvaraghavan for following the paranormal road without using the clichés typically found in such books. The first half of the book is superbly constructed. In the first half, there are enough terrifying scenes to help viewers understand why Selvaraghavan is a brilliant storyteller, especially when he’s in the zone.
Naane Varuven Review: Yet another brilliance from Dhanush
However, Naane Varuven feels largely predictable when it reaches the second half and there’s a certain urgency in completing the story without even making one invest in the conflict between the brothers. If only the second half was able to create the same impact as the first, Naane Varuven would’ve worked even more effectively.
As usual, Dhanush owns both the roles and even though as the bad guy Kathir, he gets to play to the gallery; it’s as Prabhu that he is far more believable. In Selvaraghavan’s world, you can find many Kathirs but it’s rare to come across a Prabhu and Dhanush own him so well.
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There isn’t much room for other performers in Naane Varuven because Dhanush’s dual roles and the young actors who receive some substantial roles and handle them with maturity make up the bulk of the plot. The music of Yuvan Shankar Raja is essential in enhancing the movie’s mood.