Cast: Jiiva, Raashii Khanna, Arjun Sarja, Edward Sonnenblick, Matylda, Charle, Rohini, Redin Kingsley
Crew:
Music by Yuvan Shankar Raja
Editing by San Lokesh
Cinematography by Deepak Kumar Padhy
Written & Directed by Pa. Vijay
Produced by Ishari K. Ganesh, Aneesh Arjun Dev
After Rangam, Jiiva found some great amount of popularity in Telugu states but continuous flops have almost collapsed his market. He has come up with a big budget horror thriller, Aghathiyaa, with an ensemble star cast like Arjun Sarja, Raashii Khanna, Rohini and others. Renowned composer Yuvan Shankar Raja scored music for the film and Ishari K. Ganesh produced it with complete belief in script rather than thinking about marketability. Did the producer's risk pay off? Let's discuss in detail, here.
Plot:
Aghathiyaa (Jiiva) finds himself at the negative end of luck spectrum. He always meets with some sort of failure in any work he begins with good intentions. He becomes an Art Director for a film and invests 30 Lakhs to convert an old French Palace into cinema set. But the producer drops out and even defaults Aghathiyaa's money. His long term girlfriend, Veena (Raashii Khanna) gives him a solution that he can convert the palace into a scary house in Puducherry. He loves the idea and starts the business. Real ghosts in the palace starts to showcase their presence and a corporator's son goes missing in the palace. So, the government seizes the scary house and Aghathiyaa, once again starts cursing his luck.
At this time, he starts finding clues to chase the history of the palace as a ghost Jacqueline (Matylda) starts warning them to leave. He finds out that Jacqueline and Siddharth (Arjun) were in love and that Siddharth was a Siddha medicine researcher. He had been appointed by French Prime Minister to reasearch for a cure for bone cancer that is killing second world war soldiers. He arrives in French Colony Puducherry and gets to know that the governor (Edward Sonnenblick) is ruling the place as a dictator. Siddharth cures Jacqueline, who got paralysed due to backbone issue with Siddha medicine. Slowly, even governor starts to befriend Siddharth looking at his talent. Then what happened to the medicine? What is the relation between Aghathiyaa and Siddharth? Watch the movie to know more.
Analysis :
Jiiva is good in the role and he did his best to carry the weight of the film. Raashii Khanna looked cute and she did not have much to perform. Matylda and Edward tried to just overact and they did not infuse any fear or emotional connect with their characters. Arjun had a better written role and he did perform well. But the writing is so undermining that none of his efforts turned fruitful.
While the story has loads of elements, screenplay and narrative are subpar. We can easily guess next scene and it feels like we are watching an old story said in an age old manner. The thrills are highly substandard and cliched. The narrative is loaded with many elements yet nothing engages. It almost looks like the writer-director Pa. Vijay wanted to tell everything in one story. He doesn't follow the lead about planetary alignment and brings it suddenly towards the end, with no effect.
We are asked to connect with Aghathiyaa, a loser who is tormented by bad luck. But we never see his struggle. While he is shown as a person hailing from lower middle class family, his problems seem to be too expensive for his stature. He keeps losing 30 lakhs, 50 lakhs range of amounts and he also keeps wearing designer clothes. The believability factor can be discounted in a horror film but characters need to be grounded for us connect with them. Pa. Vijay did not care about this simple fact.
Further we keep going back and forth to 1940's and 2024, yet both the storylines are not engaging enough. At least, a horror movie should have decent thrills or an engaging back story. In trying to talk about Indian Siddha Medicine, writers missed out on the fact that we don't exposition but we need characters to connect with and moments that really engage us with the storytelling.
While production values are good, the cinematography, editing could have been much better. The climax animated portion takes us away from the story and it is unintentionally funny too. Standard VFX shots are fine but this 3D animation portion is badly executed. For a film that aims to thrill you and even educate about Indian originated Ayurveda and Siddha medicine greatness, it fails to engage us through the entirety with any topic.
TeluguOne Perspective :
Aghathiyaa feels like a dump of many things rather an engaging tale.
