Given how my heart beats for underdog narratives and anti-system stories, it’s so hard not to praise Meesaya Murukku 2. This is, after all, a film about people trying to get through a door that generations of powerful people have guarded. Talent isn’t enough here. Generations pass, gaana changes, and yet, the struggle remains. That’s why I totally dug the idea of Adhi playing Jeeva, and the young versions of his father and grandfather (senior versions are played by Baba Bhaskar and Karunaas). Beyond the opportunities it provides Adhi to shine, it’s narratively a beautiful emotional choice. It suggests that the years pass, the hairstyles change, the language changes… And yet, the young man trying to get through the door bears the same face. It’s the same dream being denied by the same person.

And so, here, Jeeva’s success and failure aren’t just his alone. In most films about families, we see the trope of a parent trying to live vicariously through a child. But here, the idea carries the weight of generations. Here, Jeeva breaking the door open means that all the ancestors we see, and don’t see, get through with him (and that’s why it’s such a cool choice to get his whole family joining his singing journey). It may be a beautiful idea, but I wasn’t sure the film had me feeling its full emotional weight as it played out.

That perhaps has something to do with how Meesaya Murukku 2 seems pathologically committed to fun… colourful, energetic, almost manic fun. And so, there’s almost a restless energy to the film, fuelled by the lush, breathless score of Hiphop Tamizha, that I warmed up to after a while. At two hours and twenty minutes, the film feels even faster. Neon-lit images, wild camera angles, VFX of eyes popping out, imaginative backgrounds for dance choreography… It’s a film that’s high on several energy drinks. And after a while, you learn to bounce along with it.

I only wish the writing were as imaginative as the images. Even the comedy, which is a strong suit of this film, is a bit icky on occasion. This is a film so passionate about standing up for an underdog, but strangely enough, doesn’t mind creating humour at the expense of other underdogs. The ‘vaanavil’ song about LGBTQ culture; the heroine, Laila, whose body seems paraded, who’s often running for no obvious reason, and who’s mocked for being a “pick-up-drop girl”. Of course, the film is smart enough to know that some of this material may not be too welcome, and so, it talks about cancel culture, Twitter noise, almost pre-empting potential criticism. But that doesn’t quite deal with the contradiction, no?

But this same irreverence is wonderfully enjoyable when it’s directed at the powerful. I spat my drink out when the Brahminical Seshadri (Nasser) is saying something and Karunaas’ voice suddenly fills in for him in Madras baashai. The contrast, and the meaning, makes it hilarious. Even a heart attack becomes a joke in this film that refuses to settle on sentiment for too long. That’s why some of the images that stay wth me have something to do with its refusal to observe anything as being ‘sacred’. A Bharatanatyam dancer joins in with kuthu. Jeeva’s grandfather sings gana at a function, never mind if it’s only a few dozen distracted people. These may not be crucial plot moments, but just little bursts of personality. Meesaya Murukku 2 does have a bit of personality.

What it doesn’t have is an obvious villain. Sanjay (Sabharish) doesn’t have enough meat or menace to become one, and it’s okay, because the system here is the big, bad villain. The film has lines that directly speak about the unfairness of the system, that fatalistically voice out that the system will never change. Just as everything else evolves, so too does the system, it seems. In fact, Jeeva points out how the system has even claimed indie music for itself, so it can mask its true intentions of promoting one of its own. For some reason, I thought about VIP, which too was about a talented outsider telling an unfair system and its rich, spoilt beneficiary to… move aside.

But Meesaya Murukku 2 plays its narrative cards a bit too safely, simplistically. The eventual win for Jeeva feels too easy. The fate of Jeeva’s mother feels too basically constructed, almost like the screenplay realises it needs sentiment at a particular point and simply goes through the motions. Since the villain is ultimately something as enormous and amorphous as ‘the system’, I think this film’s screenplay needed to find more specific, more painful ways of making us experience what this system does to people, beyond the caricaturish individuals representing it.

But yes, I did feel a twang of affection for the film. Perhaps it’s because Adhi is rather likeable. And there’s Harshath too, eager to create laughs. Or perhaps it’s just the sheer force of Hiphop Tamizha’s music that refuses to let the film, or you, sit still. I only wish the writing had joined the party as well. In Meesaya Murukku 2, the colours explode, the camera is restless, and Hiphop Tamizha blazes away, but the screenplay doesn’t quite live up to the premise. But when you’re watching Jeeva and drunk friends set a bouncer on fire, you almost don’t realise this.