Test movie review: Madhavan, Nayanthara, and Siddharth are star players in this complex drama with flaws

3/5

Test Movie Plot

Arjun (Siddharth) is a seasoned batsman who is struggling to come back to form, and must prove his worth by winning big at the Test series against Pakistan. Kumudha (Nayanthara) is a cricket enthusiast, teacher and a woman who is hoping to get pregnant through IVF treatment, and then there is Saravanan (Madhavan), Kumudha’s husband and scientist, whose only motive is to mount his hydro fuel project and bring a change to the country. Their lives entwine and what happens when one’s motive is hindered by another’s achievement?

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Test Movie Review

In the very beginning of Sashikanth’s Test, we are presented with two statements and one question. The statements being: ‘A hero will destroy you to save the world’ and ‘A villain will destroy the world to save you’, and the question being ‘Who are you and how far will you go?’. The statements might have differing stances, and so does the film by large, which wants to never box its characters within these statements. There is a person who wants to not let down the country and in turn their passion, for a personal loss, and there is another one who wants to uplift the country but discarded trivially that they become a person they never intended to be. One is celebrated and tested, and one wants a mere chance to prove the worth. Test is a film which dabbles in the moral grounds of these characters, and teases you further with a third character who is almost the angel amid the two, only for them to slip a moment and snowball into a dramatic culmination of sports and emotions.

It takes a while to sink into the world of Test, which seems to have already established its characters. Kumudha and Saravanan, as we are briefly slid in, are US-returnees who are finding their own paths to become one with their native society. Saravanan does not want to be part of the brain drain, and Kumudha had a lot going on personally on her marital front too. All these happened, as we are hinted, before the film even began. We are slightly brushed upon Arjun's career as well, a once blue-eyed boy of illustrious eleven, and now the gradual slump in his career has turned him sour, even towards his son. He advises his cricket-playing son to play well and fair. You get to know a little more of him, foreshadowing what is to come. And there is Padma (Meera Jasmine), a celebrated actor-turned-housewife and doting mother. 

Test has a lot going on, while setting its premise, that it feels a little bit of every character detail is tucked into the dialogues that might be easily forgettable. It also takes a little longer for the film to enter its conflict arena, for the first half wishes to be a descriptive mode for its star ensemble trio. In this, it forgets to build a cohesive idea of three forces meeting at one point, a Test match, which also seems to be rigged with a crime at the centre.

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To begin with the positives, Test has three powerhouses of talent fronting the film, which uniquely takes sports only as an element to propel the drama. There is an inevitable turn somewhere towards the middle, and the film culminates partly on the ground. It almost feels like Test is testing the ethics of these characters, and the beauty is that neither of them passes nor fails. It inevitably reminds me of Madhavan and Sashikanth’s Vikram Vedha, where there is some blackness in white and vice versa. There are reasonings and goodness in each of them, and the believability stems from the basic human needs of survival, recognition and acknowledgment. The circumstances too help the film to make the decisions that they take, and the momentous ones comfortably slide.

But on the downside, there is also a lot going in Test, that the screenplay can come across as jarring and heavily bogged down with information overload. Sashikanth, who has backed many well-written films, makes a solid attempt at screenplay writing with his debut. But the places where it's blotched show up, evidently making Test weaker in parts. Especially in the initial parts, where the scenes are rushed to briefly tell you what is to occur, making the base premise a little weaker.

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Test has moments that is worth mentioning. An instance where Kumudha gives in to her temptation, another heated yet intimate moment between Arjun and Padma, makes you feel Test is a film laboured out of skillset and relies on performance. It gives you that reality check that comes from a pinch. But on the other hand, when Test becomes a film that takes longer to set into the world, you wish it had compressed certain parts.

Test Movie Verdict

Test makes for a solid attempt in bringing a story that is not confined to its sports genre, but at the same time justifies why the element of cricket is present. The film makes full utilisation of three leading stars, and the performances extracted add up to the highlights. Even when Sashikanth deserves praise for his choice of movies as a producer, Test marks a debut that cannot be ignored, albeit with flaws and lags in screenplay. The film makes some interesting choices, and Test, therefore, becomes a film worth a watch despite its flaws.

Test is streaming on Netflix.