Puriyatha Puthir

Puriyatha Puthir
Poster
Directed by	Ranjit Jeyakodi
Produced by	Deepan Boopathy Ratesh Velu
Written by	Ranjit Jeyakodi
Starring	Vijay Sethupathi Gayathrie Mahima Nambiar
Music by	Sam C. S.
Cinematography	Dinesh Krishnan
Edited by	Bavan Sreekumar
Production company	Rebel Studio
Distributed by	JSK Film Corporation
Release date	1 September 2017
Running time	120 minutes
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Puriyatha Puthir (English: Mystifying Puzzle) is a 2017 Indian Tamil-language psychological thriller film directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi and produced under Rebel Studio Productions. Vijay Sethupathi and Gayathrie feature in the leading roles, while the film's music is composed by Sam C. S. and cinematography is handled by Dinesh Krishnan.^[1] The film which began production in 2013, but went through production delays and was only released on 1 September 2017.^[2]

Plot

A woman stands in the terrace calling someone from her mobile, apologizing, and then committing suicide by jumping from a building.

Fast forward in time by a few years: An aspiring music director Kathir and his friends Vinod and DJ are in a pub. Vinod and DJ are desperate about videos of women, while Kathir preaches them not to do so. On the way to his music shop, Kathir finds a girl writing a name "Meera" in the drenched window of a bus, and both of them smile at each other, while the girl gets shy about him. A few days later, Kathir is fascinated by a tune heard from the piano in his shop. He finds it was played by the girl he saw in the bus. Meera orders for a red violin which she wants to be delivered to her home. Kathir delivers it to her home and both become friends. They come closer and take their relationship to a further level, becoming lovers. One day after a party, Kathir drops Meera at her home. Meera feels someone is tailing her when she is returning to her flat but could not find anyone. Vinod is sacked from his job when illicit photos of him with his boss's wife goes viral in Facebook. Due to the humiliation faced in the office, he hangs himself to death. Kathir gets a compromising photograph of Meera in his mobile cell phone, for which he gets shocked. He gets videos of her while she changes her dress in a shop's trial room. He rushes to the shop. Meera gets irritated by his behavior and demands an explanation for his acts. Kathir tells her about the video and Meera gets upset. In spite of Kathir's effort to console her, she attempts to commit suicide. Kathir saves her and tries to lodge a complaint about the videos but decides to back off.

Kathir tries to get the sender's address via a customer care of the service provider but fails, though he manages to get it from a female staff member. He goes to catch the owner Mridula, but finds she is dead 5 years ago. Meera gets discharged from the hospital and goes to Kathir. DJ tries to find out about Mridula. She died by committing suicide due to the constant discipline torture of her father. DJ shares the information to Kathir and asks to meet him next morning but is arrested the next morning by the Narcotics Bureau for indulging in drug trafficking, as an anonymous video was shared to the Narcotics Bureau. DJ happened to be in one of the videos. Kathir gets scared and wants to go away from the city. He rushes to his home but gets a video of Meera in her bathroom bathing naked. Kathir gets a message from the sender, who blackmails him to remove his clothes, wear a raincoat, and stand in a busy moving bridge for 10 minutes. He does the task, but the raincoat was dipped in red paint. As it starts raining, the raincoat becomes transparent, causing Kathir to stand naked at the bridge. The sender asks how it feels to stand naked in front of public and it is the same feeling when a person's privacy is breached. Kathir is arrested but gets released. He returns home at night and Meera demands why he is not on time. He yells at her for taking advantage of their relationship. Meera leaves to her home and is confronted by an anonymous person and is kidnapped. Kathir rushes to her flat and finds her neighbour tying her up. He rescues her and hands the kidnapper to the police. He spends a night with Meera but gets a video of his intimate time with her. He finds a diary in the wardrobe.

Meera and Mridula were thick friends at college. During a music competition in college, Meera sees Kathir, who studies at the same college. She gets attracted to him but is desperate to talk with him. Mridula opes Meera, pokes fun at her romance, and imitates her on how she will react when Kathir proposes to her while she was on her way to the bathroom in bathing attire. Meera unintentionally takes a video of her imitation. Kathir, DJ, and Vinod find Meera's phone lying on the table and steal the video. Meera sees Kathir placing the phone back to her place but thinks he wants her phone number. The video goes viral to the entire college, and the next day, Mridula is sacked by her college. Her father misunderstands she is having affairs with numerous men and disowns her. Meera feels guilty for shooting the video and consoles Mridula to ignore it, but Mridula jumps from the building and dies.

Kathir rushes to explain to Meera, but she stands in the terrace ready to jump. It is revealed that Meera is the person who shot the photos and videos of Vinod and DJ, is the reason for their death and arrest respectively, and the one who sent the videos of her dress change and the naked bathing video. Kathir begs her not to take a hasty decision and says he has nothing to do with the action, but Meera says he reacted when his loved ones faced a problem but remained quiet when a third person got affected. She tells him staying dumb when a crime is happening is equivalent to committing the crime. Kathir failed to stop his friends when they violated Mridula's privacy. He begs for an apology, while confessing his own love and feelings to Meera. Meera tells him she loves him a lot, but both of them have become a reason for Mridula's death and she cannot live with the guilt. She then jumps off the building.

Cast

• Vijay Sethupathi as Kathir
• Gayathrie as Meera
• Mahima Nambiar as Mridula
• Arjunan as DJ
• Ramesh Thilak
• Ranjith
• Vanitha Hariharan
• Sonia Deepti (cameo appearance)

Production

Vijay Sethupathi announced that he signed the film in September 2013 in an interview to The Hindu, under the direction of first time film maker Ranjith Jeyakodi.^[3] Since Sethupathi had prior commitments, the film was supposed to take off only a year later. However, as Sanguthevan, a project of Sethupathi was getting delayed, the team chose to begin principal photography immediately, with the director telling that they had no time for pre-production but started filming since he had a cinematographer and a music director ready.^[4] Gayathrie was swiftly signed on to play a violin teacher in the film, and to practice for her character she began to learn the instrument part-time.^[5] The film was launched on 17 December 2013.^[6] After the first schedule which lasted for 26 days, 50 percent of the film had reportedly been completed.^[7] Filming was held across Chennai including at Fortis Healthcare, Vadapalani by mid-February.^[8] In June 2014, the director informed that "about 10 -12 days of shooting" was remaining.^[9] In October 2014, Telugu actress Sonia Deepti also stated that she had a short role in the film.^[10]

Following a period of delay, the film was sold to JSK Film Corporation in October 2016 and renamed from Mellisai to Puriyatha Puthir.^[11] Regarding the title change, Gayathrie said, "Mellisai, even though we said it was a mystery thriller, the title may not have given the same impact. But [Puriyatha Puthir] does it".^[12] The team prepared to launch the film in January 2017 but had to withdraw after financiers contested against debts taken up by Deepan Boopathy for another film, Aakko.^[13]

Soundtrack

The film's music soundtrack was composed by Sam C. S., while the audio rights of the film was acquired by Think Music. The original album, titled Mellisai, was released on 14 October 2015 and featured four songs.

Release

Puriyatha Puthir opened following several delays on 1 September 2017. A critic from The Hindu noted that "the film begins in a rather unimpressive manner and is out of place in today’s world", while a reviewer from Sify.com wrote "nothing really works in this contrived film mainly due to the unconvincing writing and a heroine who is unimpressive".^[14][15] A reviewer from Behindwoods.com wrote the film "falls short of an engaging puzzle", adding "Ranjit Jeyakodi’s intention to present an intriguing thriller is nice, but the way of conceiving the idea and delivering it on screen could have been more confined and focussed".^[16] Likewise,the critic from The Times of India wrote "given that Lens (2017) told us the same thing fairly recently (even though this film was shot a while ago), this ‘message’ doesn’t impact us as much as it should".^[17] In contrast, The New Indian Express wrote "Vijay Sethupathi shines in this decent thriller" but adds "Puriyatha Puthir could have been so much more and that is disappointing".^[18]

References

External links

• Puriyatha Puthir on IMDb
• Mellisai on Facebook