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“Manidhar unanarndhu kolla idhu manidha kaadhal alla, adhayum than punidhamaanathu (For humans to fathom, this ain’t ordinary love. It’s more pious than that).” Kamal Haasan screamed this line in a treacherous cave in Kodaikanal for his 1991 film Guna, which echoes even now in the hearts of his ardent fans and Tamil filmmakers. Director Radha Mohan’s Bommai is one such echo. Like all echoes, Bommai also lacks clarity and sharpness of the source. Except for the core ideas like the misunderstood love and depiction of mental disorder as another state of consciousness, Bommai doesn’t share any good qualities with Haasan’s film. While Bommai’s story has incredible potential to surpass Guna, it miserably fails due to the cliche-ridden execution and horrible dialogues that evoke laughter instead of tears.
Raj Kumar (SJ Suryah), a schizophrenic artist at a mannequin factory, continues to suffer from the childhood trauma of losing his girlfriend at a temple festival. He ends up becoming a loner, but Radha Mohan needs to explain things to us so we have a friend of the hero, who is an embodiment of bad screenplay exposition. His only purpose in the film is to spell out things for us. On Day 1, he meets our hero and goes, “You look terrible today.” On day 2, when the hero is happy, he goes, “What’s happening, you look bright today?” If you need a character to depict something as simple as the hero’s mood, what’s the point of moving images? After more of such bad writing, Raj Kumar, who has started skipping his medicine, finds a mannequin with a manufacturing defect on its chin. This, for Raj, resembles his lost childhood sweetheart Nandhini (Priya Bhavani Shankar), who had a big mole on the chin. Raj starts to hallucinate that the doll is his Nandhini and starts a relationship with it. It becomes his life’s obsession and he doesn’t want to let go of Nandhini once again. He ends up becoming a murderer because of this strange love.
Despite its horrendous execution, Bommai for a brief moment shows the enormous possibilities of the story. Raj Kumar becomes a salesperson in a textile showroom in a mall where his ‘Nandhini’ ends up. Now, his supposedly pious love for this inanimate object is juxtaposed with a flirty manager, who keeps asking his subordinates out on a date. Yet, ironically, Raj, who remains civil with women, is called a pervert by the manager. Yet, even this idea is not fully etched out, because Radha Mohan spends most of the time showing us the laughable romantic moments between Raj and his imagined Nandhini. The performances of both SJ Suryah and Priya Bhavani Shankar are cartoonish. Suryah, known for his expressive acting, is unshackled here and takes things too far. Raj is a troubled person even when he is not having one of his nervous breakdowns, but we have another salesgirl developing feelings for this character.
Radha Mohan keeps resorting to old ideas to create romance instead of focusing on the psychology of such a strange relationship. For instance, it could have been about the irony of why Raj comes across as a deviant in a world full of idol-worshipers. Also, in Radha Mohan’s world, love is still sacred that’s why we don’t see the lust in the relationship between Nandhini and Raj. When the manager wonders if Raj has a kink for dolls, the protagonist is enraged. Maybe, such exploration is too dark for this film, which is hell-bent on placing a halo over the idea of love. While it is an artist’s prerogative to express his take on things, he must tell it justifying the form of his art. That’s where Radha Mohan has failed.
Bommai movie director: Radha Mohan
Bommai movie cast: SJ Suryah, Priya Bhavani Shankar
Bommai movie rating: 1 star
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