Thiru Manickam Movie Review: Samuthirakani’s film is a preachy tale of righteousness with excessive emotional milking

Thiru Manickam Movie Review: A tale of righteousness, starring Samuthirakani, becomes too drabby, and preachy

Thiru Manickam

Thiru Manickam Movie Story:

Manickam (Samuthirakani) lives with his wife (Ananya), two children and his extended family, in a humble house somewhere in the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. A righteous man who owns a lottery ticket shop, Manickam has several household responsibilities towards his family, including to pool in money for his stammering daughter’s treatment. However, he is caught on the crossroads after a poor man (Bharathiraja) selects a lottery ticket and promises to pay it tomorrow, only for the ticket to win a bumper prize of Rs 1.5 crore. With his family coaxing to use the unpaid ticket for their needs, Manickam has other plans.

Also read: Thiru Manickam teaser out: Watch out for Samuthirakani narrate the tale of deer vs forest

Thiru Manickam Movie Review:

Thiru Manickam is everything that you associate Samuthirakani’s roles so far, with. He stands for the right things, keeps practising ethical ways of living, and more importantly, makes sure that he keeps preaching the goodness and wellness for others, selflessly. Thiru Manickam makes Samuthirakani’s titular character in a position where one’s values decide if their behaviour is right more than the practicality. The film too, in many ways, can test your patience in giving a sugary coat of what selflessness means as the goodness spills over to being preachy.

In a film where the protagonist is too good to be true, one would expect a villain equally notorious. But Thiru Manickam has different plans. His righteous nature is the driving force for the storyline that is filled with “good” messaging, unwanted characters, and less enthusiasm to create drama. At one point, a corrupt cop is sure that his assignment would be successful because he has deployed two of his sincere constables. At another, a church priest is ready with a solution to a sin that the protagonist thinks he would make if he listens to the priest’s words of advice. Thiru Manickam feels like a narrative written for two hours with the sole intention to sound that being selfless is important that it forgets to form any connection emotionally. It also feels written in haste when Thambi Ramaiah’s character who is a London return looking down upon substandard people, is dealt in a caricature way that you utter a silent thank you for making the character disappear in the second half all of a sudden. Not to forget how we are introduced that Manickam and his wife are told be behave like friends with each other, and as the drama elevates, we see no signs of it.

Thiru Manickam brings too good to be true situations to reality. In the process, it also milks the emotional vulnerability of financially weaker sections of society. After a wife is chased away to her parents’ house by the dowry-demanding in-laws, the same wife resorts to even killing herself, as the torture increases. The film, for all the goodness it preaches, does not take a single stand for the family to point out the inherent wrongness in the dowry culture. Thiru Manickam also keeps pushing the idea of happy family resting in a construct that it deems good, that it never budges to learn from mistakes of showing the idea of real happiness laying in daily sufferings.

Another grouse in the film is also how it never really takes the efforts to show a narrative that is unpredictable. With its tendency to fall into what one can expect from the film, Thiru Manickam indulges in goodness in the world much larger than it exists. Even as the cast deliver a decent performance, the film travels on a monotone storyline, sans any emotional returns. It only gets tiresome, as with each step of Manickam’s good-natured action yields an opposite and equally drabby experience.

Also read: Thiru Manickam actor Samuthirakani interview: On playing the noble man, next directorial School Bus, and how his good handwriting got him chance in films 

Thiru Manickam Movie Verdict:

A preachy, and too-good to be true story does not elevate this flatline family drama.

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