Soppana Sundari(Disney+Hotstar, Tamil)
Rating: **
Several reviewers have commented on how wacky and enjoyable this comedy is. To each his or her own, I guess.
As someone who likes Aishwarya Rajesh’s work(she was outstanding in Ka Pae Ranasingham) I was deeply mortified at the things writer-director SG Charles makes her do in Soppana Sundari, a tasteless vapid-fire comedy on the acquisitive dreams of the disempowered class.
Nothing to laugh about here. And yet the alleged comedy ridicules every ordinary man’s ordinary dreams and mocks at everything from physical disability to emotional invalidity.
It all starts when Agalya(Aishwarya Rajesh) wins an economy car as bonus prize from a jewellery store. The minute the shiny red car is parked in front of her chawl home which she shares with her voluble mother,mute sister and paralyzed father(please note: over-talkativeness is also treated as some kind of an affliction) Agalya’s estranged brother(Karunakaran) and his wife lay claims on the wheels.
Elsewhere Agalya’s mute sister(Laxmi Priya Chandramouli) and her husband end up in a hit-and-run situation with a corpse in the trunk of Agalya’s car. So Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron! By the time the erratic chaotic and thoroughly idiotic plot reached this point, the writer-director seems to have lost all control over the narration. The characters seem to be moving at their own volition with little idea of where they are heading.
Watching this “comedy” is like being in a driverless car. Only God and his right hand men know where life is taking these prized jackasses who deserve to be locked up and the keys thrown away The characters are supposed to be exceedingly funny, but sadly they are not funny. The actors are seen trying hard to have fun. But the anarchic arc of the plot progression makes it impossible for any actor to climb out of the morass that masquerades as mirth.
With every passing episode the film gets more rudderless and less amusing. Towards the end poor Aishwarya Rajesh’s Agalya(she must be wondering what wrong she had done in her past life to deserve this) lands up at the police station where the inspector has been eyeing her lasciviously from the start.
“Rape me and end this nightmare,” she implores the cop.
Not funny. Not even politically correct. Soppana Sundari is a nightmarish laughter challenge. I can’t even say it is a laughathon gone wrong.It just doesn’t get it right from the scriptural stage,provided there was a script.
