Otha Seruppu Movie Review

Otha Seruppu (Size 7)

Otha Seruppu is an ambitious project from Radhakrishnan Parthiban. When you felt the actor lost his magic in both acting and direction and that he has been selecting some ridiculously silly films oflate, Parthiban is back with a bang. Otha Seruppu is a solo act film, where Parthiban plays the protagonist and the only actor in the entire film. Technically supported by Resul Pookutty (Sound design), Ramji (Camera) and C. Sathya (BGM), the movie is supposedly a brilliantly executed thriller. The film was shown recently to the critics and also several other big stars across the country and they have been raving the attempt unanimously.

Otha Seruppu Movie Review

The films starts and ends in an interrogation room inside a police station. We have Masilamani (R Parthiban) who is arrested and interrogated for a murder by the AC and an Inspector. The film revolves around the character or Masilamani and his relationship with his wife, which is narrated as part of the interrogation. Masilamani also has a son who is suffering from a critical disorder and will not survive for more than 6 months. His son is seated outside the interrogation room. We are also shown that Masilamani is mentally affected by the events and often hallucinates during the interrogation. The cops then bring a psychologist also as part of the investigation. Till the end, we are kept in suspense whether to believe the stories told by Masilamani is true or not.

Two hours – same setup and same person throughout the film, with just voice over for others is unbelievable. But Parthiban pulls it off successfully with immense help form the technical team. Apart from his trademark Nakkal’s, Parthiban has written the script in such a manner that it has scope for action, suspense, romance and sentiment – all performed by himself. Bringing light humour through dialogues in every situation is not new for Parthiban – with the creative freedom he has in this project, he goes overboard. For eg, the scene where he relates laughter to the sound from the waterless tap.

The success of the film lies in the fact that we are made to forget that it’s a one actor film with in few minutes we are into it. Director Parthiban manages to keep us engaged with his performance to a large extent. Further, we can also connect with other characters even though we don’t see them. For eg, his son's character - even while we are shown only the interrogation part, we still keep thinking what is happening to his sick son sitting outside the room. Each character is well defined and have a need. However, the hallucination scenes and those where he tries to talk unrelated aspects during the investigation is overdone. Some harsh editing would have helped the film to be shorter and more effective.

As mentioned above, the technical aspects were never so important for any film. The camera by Ramji explores the various lightings and angles around the room in sync with the scene and dialogues. The sound design by Resul Pookutty is done in such a manner that we understand the position of other characters in the film. BGM by C.Sathya is apt and does not go overboard, which was very helpful.

It’s not Parthiban, but we as the audience who should be proud for having someone make a film with such an unique concept. Further with the ever increasing budget and production issues, movies like this are real inspiration for upcoming writers and directors. Otha Seruppu is an out of the box experiment with successful results !!!

Rating – 3.5/5