Enna Solla Pogirai Movie Review: A harmless romcom that misses a few beats along the way

Remember Remo? The film where Sivakarthikeyan falls in love with an already-engaged Keerthy Suresh, but nevertheless tries his best to make her fall in love with him. Now imagine a film where it is not the girl but the boy who is engaged to marry, and there is a retention of a few similar beats that made the 2016 film be the blockbuster it was. Voila! We have Enna Solla Pogirai. Considering the strong performances by the women — Teju Ashwini and Avantika Mishra — we could have had a brilliant gender reversal of a Remo-ish film. However, director Hariharan has other plans, and while some are executed to perfection, some others are middling, and the rest come a cropper.

Cast: Ashwin Kumar, Teju Ashwini, Avantika Mishra, Pugazh

Director: Hariharan

Remember Vaali? The film where Ajith Kumar fashions a non-existent love story between him and Jyothika to impress Simran, but an obstacle comes in the form of both these women accidentally meeting one day? Now, a similar thing happens in Enna Solla Pogirai, and the meeting is actually orchestrated by Vikram (Ashwin Kumar), and then everything that could go wrong goes wrong in the story. The other two sides of this seemingly convoluted love triangle are Anjali (Avantika) and Preeti (Teju). Billed as Cook with Comali-fame Ashwin Kumar’s launch as a lead hero, Enna Solla Pogirai actually functions more as a star vehicle for Teju and Avantika who are given author-backed roles. Unlike Vikram’s job as an RJ that doesn’t really add much to the film, we have theatre artiste Preethi and romance fiction writer Anjali using their strengths to figure out their lives.

While the idea of love propagated by the three of them are as cliched as it can get, the serendipitous romance scenes translate well on screen. Hariharan’s decision to not rush these scenes allows us to get acquainted with Vikram, Anjali and Preeti. It is impressive how each of these equations gradually blossoms in the film. Vikram and Anjali don’t really hit it off immediately, and although the latter’s love for Vikram might seem rushed, it actually shows the kind of person Anjali is. Her idea of love might be warped but it is fiercely her own, and she stays true to it till the credits roll. The same holds good for Preethi, who is as confident as she is conflicted, and her well-founded dilemma works in propelling the film forward. It is Vikram who gets lost in between Anjali and Preeti, and his misgivings and misplaced anger don’t really make his case. While Ashwin feels most at home in the song sequences and the initial meet-cutes, the heavy lifting in the emotional scenes are done by Teju and Avantika, and the lack of clarity in his role gets reflected in the performance too. As the film moves on, it gets clearer that Enna Solla Pogirai is essentially a story of two strong-willed women who are briefly thrown off track of their lives by the intrusion of a charming yet superfluous personality.

However, it is only so much “do I love her? Does he love me? Do I love him? Does she love me? Does she love him?” that we can take in a film that doesn’t exactly score high on the novelty factor. Enna Solla Pogirai definitely needed a hook factor to hold the attention when it is determinedly operating in safe zones. For instance, the recent two Ashok Selvam films — Ninnila Ninnila/Theeni and Oh My Kadavule — also were love triangles but brought in an element of fantasy to add in a dash of novelty. This is where Enna Solla Pogirai falters, and the generic conversations between the leads don’t really help either. Another downside of the film is the forced comedy track featuring Ashwin’s Cook with Comali co-star Pugazh. In fact, his presence in the emotional scenes works way better than his comic one-liners. While it does add points to Pugazh’s acting credentials it doesn’t really add to his credibility as a comedian.

Enna Solla Pogirai is definitely composer duo Vivek-Mervin’s musical representation of the meme where we see a musician on a beach playing a flaming piano. It is easily one of their best works, and Hariharan treats the soundtrack with the respect it deserves. It is not often in Tamil cinema that we get a well-made (points to DOP Richard M Nathan for those rich visuals, especially the songs) romantic musical, and in many ways, Enna Solla Pogirai hopes to fill that vacuum. While it might not necessarily be a perfect fit, it is no doubt a decent value addition to this list.