Iravin Nizhal movie review: Parthiban’s film is quirky, but feels familiar

 

Iravin Nizhal movie review: Iravin Nizhal is not just a single-shot movie. It also feels like Parthiban has tried to narrate it in a single breath just like Guna. The movie flows non-stop from one scene to the other seemingly without a pause for reflection.

Actor-filmmaker R. Parthiban’s latest movie Iravin Nizhal, which means the showdown of the night, feels like an extrapolation of a famous scene in Kamal Haasan’s cult classic Guna. In the said scene, Kamal’s Guna goes in a circle while narrating his pains and the scene ends with him running into a wall.

Iravin Nizhal is not just a single-shot movie. It also feels like Parthiban has tried to narrate it in a single breath just like Guna. The movie flows non-stop from one scene to the other seemingly without a pause for reflection. This film tells the story of a tormented soul. And Parthiban covers a lot of ground with the plot as he assimilates the elements of social commentary and morality tale into an amorphous narration.

Nandu (Parthiban) is a hard boiled protagonist. At a very young age, he loses his innocence. His mother was murdered by his alcoholic father, who goes to jail and makes him an orphan. His foster family begins to mistreat him with the arrival of their biological child. He’s left to wander on the streets, learning ways to survive the cold winds and cold-hearted men. He gets raped, and physically assaulted and experiences everything that a boy of his age shouldn’t. And the brutal treatment meted out by society turns him into an amoral man. But, just when he reaches the top of the food chain and he’s no longer the prey but a predator, life throws a curve ball. He becomes a father of a baby girl and that event forces him to get in touch with his comatose conscience, which in turn makes his life a living hell.

The driving emotion of Iravin Nizhal is one man’s unresolved women problems. Nandu is a man who seemingly struggles to make sense of women or their role in his life. It is his frustration, anger and regrets with the opposite gender that drives his every action. For him, his biggest regrets and his only redemption, all come in the form of females. A theme that Parthiban keeps visiting over and over again in his movies.