An impressive drama with terrific organic humour

Towards the end, having experienced the hilarious and often poignant interplay between such real, rural characters, it seemed to me that this is the sort of film that somebody like Manikandan would make if asked to do a village film.

A hero, or a parent?

While movies can and will influence, you have to hope that any adult worth their salt will know better than to rely on fiction for moral advice.

Thondan: A big basket of moral lectures

He plays an ambulance driver called Vishnu who has saved 1,362 lives. And Vishnu, as you know, is the protector—saviour if you will—in Hindu mythology. One of his friends is named Vaikuntam. All daughters born in his ambulance generally get named Vishnupriya. The film is layered like that.

Brindavanam: A warm, fuzzy drama that works for the most part

Like Mozhi, this film too is about a menagerie of people across religion, caste and occupation, who live together as one happy unit. It’s for that reason that the film is titled Brindavanam, which translates to ‘a garden of happiness’. There’s an almost saccharine air of optimism that pervades the film’s world; think of the director as the anti-Bala.