Tamil cinema’s biggest surprises of 2022: From ‘Love Today’ to ‘Vilangu’

The unpredictability of Dhanush

Dhanush is one of the most unpredictable stars in Tamil cinema, and 2022 was yet another testament to that. The year started on a terrible note; his film with Karthick Naren, Maaran, was unbelievably amateurish. Quoting our review of the film, it came across as a “terrible mish-mash of scenes stitched together in a haphazard manner.”

But Dhanush soon went on to do Dhanush-like things, and after The Gray Man, the star took all our collective breaths away with one of our favourite films of the year, Thiruchitrambalam, in a grounding story of a man dealing with trauma which doubled as an endearing rom-com. Unfortunately, his next release Naane Varuvean didn’t quite hit the mark.

Cracking the long format crime-drama 

Since before the streaming boom, Tamil content creators have been trying to crack the long-format crime thriller. 2022 brought more than half a dozen of these titles; like the underwhelming Tamil Rockerz, a could-have-been-better Irai, a middling Vadhandhi: The Fable of Velonie, an excellent Suzhal: The Vortex, and more. Suzhal, which hailed from Pushkar-Gayathri, is in fact one of India’s biggest successes on OTT in recent years.

But ZEE5’s Vilangu takes the cake as the most surprising entrant to this list. Prasanth Pandiyaraj’s series stars Vemal as a small-town sub-inspector of police, who is tasked with solving a series of crimes. When he finds a mutilated body, the narrative begins to take many twists and turns. A grounding treatment of a neat investigation helped the show tremendously and it manages to pack in many surprises in its seven-episode run.

A vengeful beast

Yes, we are referring to Vijay’s Beast, but the vengeful beast wasn’t the film. It was the relentless internet trolls. Nelson Dilipkumar’s film was disappointing, and even his signature elements couldn’t save this supposed invasion thriller with an undercooked screenplay. The online trolling wasn’t new — filmmakers like N Lingusamy have been victims of the same — but this was a just reminder that, here, it doesn’t matter if you had just delivered a hit like Doctor to prove your mettle.

The Ulaganayagan came back with a bang, and it was louder than expected

Vikram was hyped to the hilt, once it was announced that Lokesh Kanagaraj would collaborate with Kamal Haasan, and that the film would also star Fahadh Faasil and Vijay Sethupathi. Lokesh hasn’t given a bad film so far, and as expected, he went all guns blazing for his favourite star to make one of the best crime dramas that Tamil cinema has seen in recent years.

But even ardent cinema audiences did not expect the film to touch the numbers it did; Udhayanidhi Stalin, who released the film, agrees with this. What was even more surprising was how Vikram broke all assumptions about the post-OTT audience; Vikram ran to full attendance in theatres even after its streaming premiere on Disney+ Hotstar.

There is love today

Love Today was a surprise and shock in equal measure. Pradeep Ranganathan is a smart filmmaker who knows his audience well. In his second as a director and first as an actor, he proved that you don’t need something mind-bending to impress the average film-goer. With an enjoyable story, he voiced out something we have all thought about: the privacy of our mobile phones. Here, he uses a rom-com treatment to explore the many complexities that affect trust between two individuals in a modern-day relationship.

However, the director does fumble in his attempts to make a balance sheet for the sins of his male protagonist and the female lead, and in justifying some of these issues.

2022, when Ashok Selvan came into his own

Like Vikram Prabhu in Taanakkaran, Vemal in Vilangu, Sai Pallavi in Gargi, or Keerthy Suresh and Selvaraghavan in Saani Kaayidham, actors surprise us with stand-out performances every year. But 2022 was particularly prolific for Ashok Selvan. In three out of his five releases as leads, he got to flex his acting muscles. In Sila Nerangalil Sila Manidhargal, Ashok gave a compelling performance as a man riddled with guilt and grief; in Manmadha Leelai, he proved that he could pull off comedy; and in Nitham Oru Vaanam, he appears in four distinct roles: as a cooped-up man who finds solace in stories, as a college rowdy in love, as a hopeless villager from rural Tamil Nadu, and in a surprise role as well. 

‘Kuthiraivaal,’ a beam of hope

Whatever Pa Ranjith touched in 2022 turned out to be a surprise for the audiences. His directorial Natchathiram Nagargiradhu, despite being similar to his previous films in dialogue, was very experimental in its form and quite self-indulgent. Earlier in the year, Ranjith’s Neelam Productions released Kuthiraivaal, directed by Manoj Leonel Jahson and Shyam Sunder, a psychological drama without a conventional story. While this in itself might be a surprise to many, the attention the film garnered during its release also proved that such attempts can have an audience, despite its lukewarm results. Conventional storytellers could learn a thing or two from Kuthiraivaal, and we might just get our own Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.

A legend unlike any other

We still don’t know if this was a surprise or shock, but you don’t always get to see a packed cinema hall at 4 am in the morning, howling at an entrepreneur-turned-actor weeping his heart out. There have been instances, like 2007’s Veerasamy, when a campy film gets trolled only to gain cult status for its unintentional humour, but ‘Legend’ Saravanan-starrer The Legend really upped the notch. The film is unintentionally absurd, everything it touches turns into comedy gold and it is as colourful as Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.