Achcham Madam Naanam Payirppu(Amazon Prime Video)
Directed by Raja Ramamurthy
Rating: ***
Since this is a cute confection on a virgin singer,it’s all about losing your cherry on the I-sing. Akshara Haasan has so far not been lucky in her career. Here she plays Pavithra a girl her own age who is unlucky in sex. Having crossed the age of consent Pavithra wonders why she hasn’t lost her virginity as yet.
It is a yearning rather than a burning issue. What with her shrill mother(Malgudi Subha) nagging her about everything from her dressing habits to her singing disabilities Pavithra feels hemmed in, suffocated.Grandmother is calmer.That’s probably because she is played by singer Usha Uthup , hence entitled to a quota of cool.
Sadly writer-director Raja Ramamurthy is not in the mood to probe too deeply into Pavithra’s growing-up pangs. In that sense he is one with Pavithra’s mother who nags and screams but makes no real effort to understand that what her daughter is going through is the opposite of a menopause. And it’s not puberty.
Pavithra must therefore spend her whining-and-deep-diving time with her two gal pals, one of who urges her to have s*x while the other thinks she should save it for after marriage.
Such discussions are generally far less organized, streamlined. There is something very prim and propah about Achcham Madam Naanam Payirppu . It is the cinematic version of a uniform code of conduct where individuals are given the freedom to express themselves, but only within specific limitations and guidelines.Something like, you can wear your school uniform with the skirt shortened but not too much.
Pavithra is given the freedom to talk about sexual fantasies, a la Maitrayee Ramakrishnan in Never Have I ever. Vihaan Samat was given the same freedom recently in the delightful series Eternally Confused and Eager For Love. Except that Vihaan was allowed a lot more leeway for loquacity .
Akshara Haasan’s Pavithra is bogged down by moral considerations that have forever messed up gender equations in this country. To take an example, a young man exploring his sexuality can speak of masturbation . The same freedom is not obtainable for a girl who is smothered by motherly concerns and inhibited by a paranoic perception of what is expected of her as opposed to what she wants. Pavithra can talk about her periods and buy condoms but she can’t tell her parents about her boyfriend.
Achcham Madam Naanam Payirppu could have been a pathbreaking film about a conservative family and a daughter who is not comfortable being told what to wear,where to go, how to sing and whom to sleep with. Rather than get its hands messy , this one just skims the surface, though not in an unlikeable way.
