Pannaiyarum Padminiyum

Pannaiyarum Padminiyum
Release poster
Directed by	S. U. Arun Kumar
Produced by	M. R. Ganesh
Screenplay by	S. U. Arun Kumar
Story by	S. U. Arun Kumar
Starring	Vijay Sethupathi Jayaprakash Aishwarya Rajesh Bala Saravanan Thulasi
Music by	Justin Prabhakaran
Cinematography	Gokul Benoy
Edited by	A. Sreekar Prasad
Production company	Magicbox Films
Release dates	7 February 2014 (2014-02-07)
Country	India
Language	Tamil

Pannaiyarum Padminiyum (English: The Landlord and Padmini) is a 2014 Indian Tamil comedy-drama film based on the same-titled short film directed by debutant S. U. Arun Kumar of Naalaya Iyakunar fame.^[1] It features Vijay Sethupathi and Jayaprakash in the lead roles, with Thulasi, Aishwarya Rajesh and Bala Saravanan in supporting roles. Sneha and Attakathi Dinesh appear in brief guest roles.^[2][3] Music for the film was composed by debutant Justin Prabhakaran and editing by A. Sreekar Prasad while the cinematography is by Gokul Binoy.

The film revolves around an old man and his love for his vintage car Premier Padmini.^[4][5] The film began production in January 2013 and released on 7 February 2014 to critical acclaim and positive reviews.^[6][7]

Plot

The movie begins with a young man (Attakathi Dinesh) buying a car and he says that his inspiration is from a Pannaiyar (landlord) in his village and his love for a vintage Fiat PAL Premier Padmini car.

Pannaiyar (Jayaprakash) is a wealthy and respectable man in his village. Pannaiyar and his wife Chellamma(Thulasi) are kindhearted and broadminded people who are responsible for introducing essential modern technology like Television, Radio, telephone,etc., to their villagers. The villagers also enjoy the liberty of using all these items with his permission. The couple have a married daughter Suja(Neelima Rani), who is greedy and whenever she visits her parents, she makes it a point to return to her house with whichever device she finds pleasing to her eye.

Pannaiyar visits his close friend Shanmugam(Mahadevan), who owns the then latest (now vintage) Fiat PAL Premier Padmini car. Pannaiyar is smitten by the beauty of the car and becomes an ardent admirer. He enjoys the ride like an excited kid. Soon, Shanmugam also comes to his house and to Pannaiyar's surprise and happiness, says that he will leave the car for a couple of months under Pannaiyar's care since he is going to visit his pregnant daughter. Pannaiyar happily agrees and from then on, he stands in front of car dusting it and admiring it for hours at a time. Since he doesn't know to drive, he appoints a local young man Murugesan (Vijay Sethupathi) as driver and the comical household servant Peedai(Bala Saravanan) as the cleaner. Pannaiyar and Chellamma treat them like their own sons. School going kids often swarm around the car asking for a ride in the front seat and one little boy in particular is very much interested, so Peedai jokingly asks him to bring five rupees to get a front seat ride and the boy starts saving his pocket money sincerely day by day. Like all the other facilities belonging to Pannaiyar, the villagers also get the opportunities to use the car for their emergency purposes. On one such day, when Murugesan is helping a family at a funeral, he comes across a beautiful girl Malarvizhi(Aishwarya Rajesh) among the mourners. He is attracted to her instantly and after a bit of pursuing, she also falls for him and they start to love each other.

As days pass by, Panniyar, Chellamma and Murugesan become more and more attached to the car and are dreading to part with it if at all Shanmugam comes to take it someday. Chellamma is the sensible person out of the three, so she distances herself and on one occasion she refuses to even get in the car and when Pannaiyar asks why, she replies that she will get into the car only on the day when Pannaiyar drives it. So Pannaiyar is determined to learn driving and asks Murugesan to train him. Murugesan fears that he will have no job with the car if Pannaiyar starts driving, so he delays and procrastinates as much as he can. So Pannaiyar's driving progress is very slow. One night, Chellamma requests her husband to learn driving before their wedding anniversary so that they can go to the temple together and he obliges.

Meanwhile, Shanmugam's daughter (Sneha) unexpectedly visits them and says that her dad suddenly died and requests him to give some property documents that her father left under his care. Pannaiyar is shocked to hear about the loss of his friend, at the same time he feels sad to part with the car. But when he is about to hand over the keys and documents, she says that let the car remain with him as a remembrance of her dad and she leaves it behind. Pannaiyar, Chellamma and Murugesan are overjoyed to hear this and gift her with money as a blessing. Now that they are the proud owners of the car, the Pannaiyar family is content and certain heartwarming incidents also change Murugesan's mind and now he wholeheartedly plans to train Pannaiyar to drive. One small accident happens while training and due to rough handling, the car starts to have minor glitches and starting troubles from then on.

One day, Pannaiyar's daughter Suja comes home and when she sees they have bought the car, she fights with her parents and says that a third person like Murugesan is using the car for driving around his girlfriend and demands that she wants to take it to her house. Unable to refuse, Pannaiyar halfheartedly lets her take it, much to the disappointment of Murugesan and Chellamma and Pannaiyar also feels bad that now their wedding anniversary plans are also ruined because of that. But exactly on their wedding day, as the family is preparing to get into a bullock cart to go to the temple, they see an irate Suja coming to their house with the villagers pushing the car back into their house. She says that she and her husband just missed death by inches in an accident because the car suddenly stopped and scolds her father for giving a useless old car. Chellamma steps in and scolds her and Suja storms away angrily leaving the car behind. Murugesan, Pannaiyar and Chellamma dismiss Suja's unnecessary tantrum and are rather pleased that their car is back. They try to start the car but unfortunately it wouldn't start. In utter frustration, Peedai jumps over the car and sits on the bonnet and suddenly it starts.

Finally, as per their earlier plan, Pannaiyar manages to drive successfully and take his wife Chellamma in his own car to the temple on their anniversary. Meanwhile, the little boy who saved money to get a front seat ride sadly leaves out of town for higher studies without his wish being fulfilled. That boy now turns out to be the young man (Attakathi Dinesh) who bought the new car at the beginning of the movie. He visits his hometown and still searches for the car in Pannaiyar's house. He sees Murugesan, Pannaiyar and Peedai using the very same vintage car even now and even using the same method of Peedai jumping over the bonnet to start it. Murugesan is now married to Malarvizhi and has kids. The young man is still awestruck by the car like a kid, and Murugesan asks if he needs a ride to the town. He says yes and finally sits in the front seat of the car, and his longtime wish is fulfilled at last as they drive away.

Cast

• Vijay Sethupathi as Murugesan
• Jayaprakash as Pannaiyar
• Aishwarya Rajesh as Malarvizhi
• Thulasi as Chellamma
• Bala Saravanan as Peedai
• Neelima Rani as Suja
• Mahadevan as Shanmugam
• Sneha as Shanmugam's daughter (Guest appearance)
• Dinesh as the narrator (Guest appearance)

Release

The satellite rights of the film were secured by Puthu Yugam. The film was given a "U" certificate by the Indian Censor Board. Pannaiyarum Padminiyum was released on 7 February 2014. The film was screened in many International Film Festivals such as Jargar Film Festival,^[8] Prague International Film Festival, Habitat Film Festival,^[9] 12th Chennai International Film Festival (CIFF), 7th Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFES) ^[10] in which it won the special jury award.^[11] It was the only Tamil film selected to be screened at the 19th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK).^[12]

Critical reception

Upon release, the film opened to predominantly positive reviews from critics. Baradwaj Rangan of The Hindu described the film as "sweetly old-fashioned" but felt that "developments have been dreamed up simply to pad out the running time" and that "the scenes and characters (added to make a feature film from a short), sometimes, feel like editing-room discards that are rightfully DVD extras".^[13] Sify called it "a feel good and charming emotional drama" but that the length was "the film’s Achilles heels as it stretches and goes on and on, making it boring at times".^[14] IANS gave it 4.5/5 and wrote, "In a list featuring films that tug at your heart strings, Pannaiyarum Padminiyum deserves to be right on the top. An emotionally uplifting work, the film steers away from the commercial zone by constantly rewarding us with characters that not just entertain but stay with us hours after we leave the cinema hall".^[15] Bharath Vijaykumar of Moviecrow gave 3.5/5 and concluded, "A pleasant drive sans any bump that makes you soak in unadulterated emotions and leaves a smile in your face.".^[16] The Times of India gave the film 3.5/5 and wrote, "Expanding his much-loved short film into a full-length feature, Arunkumar shows that he is a capable storyteller. He takes his time spinning his yarn but there is an assuredness in the telling that keeps you hooked".^[17] Indiaglitz gave 3.5/5 and wrote, "Arun's direction deserves much more than appreciation, one for coming up with a clean family entertaining movie, two for bringing out a full length picture out of a short story" and added "the screenplay could have been a little quicker for the sentimental scenes look very stretchy and could have been made thinner".^[18] Rediff gave it 3/5 and called the film "refreshing" and "a realistic story about the lives of ordinary people and their simple desires".^[19] Behindwoods gave it 3/5 and wrote that it "brims with charm, sentiment and carries a lot of feel-good factor".^[20] S. Rajasekar of Cinemalead wrote "the director seems to have lengthen the duration to avoid short film feel. Had the film's running time is just 120 minutes without deviating from the core subject it would have been a cult classic." and rated it with 2.5/5 stars.^[21]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack album was composed by Justin Prabhakaran and the lyrics were written by Vaali and the composer himself.^[22]

Tracklist

Remake

Even before the release of Pannaiyarum Padminiyum, actor Nani had purchased the Telugu remake rights of the film.^[23]

References

External links

• Pannaiyarum Padminiyum at the Internet Movie Database