Vanam movie review: This humdrum eco-thriller, starring Vetri and Smruthi Venkat, deserve better writing

2.5/5

Story: An art student, who lives in a college hostel, realizes that one of the rooms over there has been haunted by an unknown evil force. He sets out to crack the mystery behind the room with his childhood sweetheart. Little did he know that he would come across some startling revelations when he digs deeper into the riddles. 

Review: Srikantan Anand's Vanam, which piqued the curiousity of film buffs with its compelling trailer, revolves around the tale of an unusual reincarnation. Vetri, who plays the lead in the film, is regarded as someone who has a knack of picking intriguing scripts, like his earlier outings 8 Thottakkal and Jiivi.

Vanam, too, begins on a promising note with a different plot. However, the story goes haywire once its screenplay falters after a point and things become too predictable. The movie also reminds of recent Tamil film, Boomika, because of the similarity it shares with the latter with regard to touching upon the topic of forest conservation.

The movie opens with the hostel of an arts college getting fixed. A painter gets stuck in one of its rooms and he commits suicide in a puzzling manner. After repeated suicides in the same room, Magizh (Vetri), an art student, shares his concern over the same to Arun Gopal (Azhagam Perumal), the principal of the college. 

He assures Magizh that he will look into the issue even as the latter starts cracking down the mystery with the help of his childhood sweetheart Jasmine (Smruthi Venkat), who is also a documentary filmmaker.

The duo gets to know that there is a strange connection between the suicides that happen in the hostel and a zamindar who used to live there a few decades ago. They start following a writer who has documented all the evil acts of zamindar, including his lustful behaviour towards women and wicked plans to a destroy the lives of inhabitants in a forest.  

Later, Magizh gets the shock of his life when he understands that zamindar and Malli (Anu Sithara), a fierce lady who used to protect forest, are reborn in different avatars. Who are they? How are the suicides related to their rebirth?

What starts off as an intriguing story, thanks to the unusual plot, fizzles out soon due to its slow narration and a slew of predictable sequences in the latter half. The director has tried to come up with convincing reasons for the final battle between the protagonist and the antagonist, but the explanation for mysterious suicides hardly leave an impact. 

The flashback portions involving people who live in the forest lack depth because of which the viewers are not able to relate to their struggles. The revenge angle works, thanks to Vela Ramamoorthy's performance as the cruel zamindar, but his rebirth as a completely new person is unconvincing, as a result of which the prime conflict ends up as a bizarre one.

Vetri comes up with a stoic performance reminding his portrayal of characters in earlier outings while Smruthi Venkat is apt in her character. Azhagam Perumal shines in his role which has multiple shades, though it suffers from weak writing. Anu Sithara as the protector of forests is okayish. Vikram Mohan's cinematography and Ron Ethan Yohann's background score deserve mention as the two aspects make the film watchable despite its unimpressive narration.

Verdict: Vanam has a few elements required for a taut thriller, but the weak screenplay and underwritten characters spoil the opportunity.