Idhayam Murali begins with some generic nostalgia bait: patchy cable TV connections, teacher crushes, Fanta bottles, desktop computers and CD-ROMs that I gazed at with half-misty eyes… There may be all this nostalgia in the beginning (perhaps because it is a reinterpretation of Idhayam, a film from a different time), but make no mistake, the soul of this film is decidedly current. And by “current”, I mean the distinctly Instagram-age restlessness in its writing. Every moment seems burdened by the need to attach itself to some hot trend, almost as though the moment itself cannot be trusted to work on its own. A terrace fight needs the MSD brand. A bus fight needs the CSK brand. A slow-mo moment needs an Ilaiyaraaja song. A successful career needs NASA branding. There’s more attention, it seems, in the garnish than in the meal.

Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that my favourite character in the film should be a cameo… (Fahadh Faasil, no surprises here). I’ll be honest. At first, I couldn’t quite understand what he was doing here, in this film, given its beginnings. But the effect of his brief appearances grows to be cumulatively enormous, as he somehow, even with all the limitations, manages to create the only character who feels like a real person (Natty manages a bit of this as well). I also really liked Preity’s radiance in this film, even if the film rarely allows us access to her mind(s). That brings me to a big problem in the film: do we ever truly get to know anyone in it?

The original Idhayam (1991) was very much a product of its time. It belonged to an era when idealisation passed for love, when expression was difficult, when love walked hand-in-hand with superlative notions of loyalty. Idhayam Murali inherits this emotional idea, this mute-handicap if you will, but it doesn’t quite interrogate it or even sit with it. Raja, from the original, would be horrified to see how Idhaya falls in love at first sight multiple times, with the film too urging us to invest in each of these attractions. But as he keeps falling for one pretty stranger after another, each of whom he (and we) know next to nothing about, it becomes increasingly difficult not to wonder why the film isn’t really critiquing this profoundly confused man instead (or perhaps at least do more work into humanising his confusion).

That entire twist involving Preity’s Samantha (the film wants you to see it as a devastating development) only seems to expose the pitfalls of being consumed only by a woman’s looks. The frustration is how Idhaya’s feelings never really develop a meaningful foundation. Here’s a pretty student, and he’s in love. Here’s a pretty doctor, and he’s in love. The familiar feel-good montages (involving Kayadu and friends) don’t reveal much beneath the surface, though the actors try their best to compensate for the writing. I really liked Kayadu in that scene where she admits she had feelings for him too, even if she also won’t explain why.

When Idhaya’s friend eventually asks why he’s returned to being in love with Samantha, his explanation is essentially, “I stumbled into her again. So, it must be destiny.” That trope would work when you have a single woman, but when you’ve got more than one, then the uncomfortable, not-so-romantic suggestion is that he would have fallen for someone else if he’d stumbled into them instead. Atharvaa, to his credit, plays this emotionally paralysed man with sincerity, with a certain dignified silence. But when the same pattern repeats itself over and over again, I began wondering if he’s unable to tell them what he feels about them because he’s simply introverted… or because he simply doesn’t know them enough to say much.

For much of its runtime, Thaman’s score works overtime trying to plaster over what feels like a greatest-hits compilation of romantic-film tropes: a tuition romance that recalls 3, a gang of six F.R.I.E.N.D.S (the sitcom itself even gets a nod during the American portions), railway-station separations, airport separations, generic political villains, destiny masquerading as love… Scene after scene passes. Characters arrive and leave. Friends change. Thaman songs play. Familiar faces from social media keep popping up. And for a very long time, I simply found myself a passive observer UNTIL…

That final stretch which totally worked for me! Suddenly, I saw more invested writing, more heart, more authentic emotion (Natty becomes the world’s greatest uncle). And of course, it helps that there’s more FaFa. And then comes what, for me, is the defining image of the film: a bride (Malavika Mohanan), freshly abandoned, coolly smoking a cigarette, already halfway through the process of surviving heartbreak. Again, Murali from the original Idhayamwould’ve been utterly bewildered by these people, drifting in and out of love. But perhaps that’s precisely the point: that romance and notions of love have changed.

I only wish the film were clearer about where it stood. One moment it asks us to sympathise with Idhaya and his inability to express love. But then, you’ve got Fahadh’s character suggesting quite understandably that he actually may be good riddance. But then, if that’s true, shouldn’t Samantha deserve better too? Or is destiny a good enough reason for a go-getter space scientist to fall for a confused tourist-man?

And therein, I think, lies the real emotional distance between Idhayam and Idhayam Murali. In Idhayam, Raja (Murali) couldn’t say what he felt, but you never doubted what he felt. In Idhayam Murali too, Idhaya cannot say what he feels, but you do doubt him because he seems to be in a lot of doubt himself (that scene in America where he tries to figure out his feelings with his friends is testament). Both might be symbols of their respective times, but there’s a reason why one breaks your heart while the other leaves you… partly entertained, partly confused. Silence, you see, can be devastating, Flakiness on the other hand…