Saivam aka Vegetarian [dir. AL Vijay]

For Movie with Mum night last weekend, I picked a title a friend had heartily recommended as a simple, very clean and wholesome entertainer - Saivam aka Vegetarian (2014). My favorite Indian movie critic Baradwaj Rangan also gave it a 'crowing' review. The friend was partly right about the movie - it was simple, clean and wholesome. Entertainer? Well...

Veteran actor Nassar is Kathiresan, the agrarian patriarch of a multi-generational family spread across the map. The members only meet up at the ancestral home during festivals or other important occasions, so as they roll in one by one, Kathir is overjoyed at the prospect of seeing the whole brood together again. He is a strict (but just) patriarch the rest of the family slightly fears. The punishment for any transgression of rules seems to be "Murga ban jao" (roughly "make a rooster pose", a common form of non-corporeal punishment for young children in India). This choice of punishment has greater resonance in the narrative that follows, but I suspect that in this family, even armed assault or murder could be forgiven after a "murga" penitence.

Kathir's grandchild from the son that lives with him is Tamizhselvi (Sara Arjun, who exudes so much goody-goody cuteness, diabetic viewers are in danger of going into a coma). On the other hand his grandson from a Dubai-settled daughter (Ray Paul) is a total arsehole. I was wondering if this was going to be a "Desi upbringing = good kids, urban upbringing = brats" homily, but thankfully there are other urban characters not like this brat. As to why he was pampered to be such a dick can probably be explained by the very Indian tendency to deify sons over daughters.

Saivam tries to generate a good deal of humor in the interaction between the rural and urban members. When the brat asks about wi-fi in the house, the family servant (actor George Maryan channeling his inner Goundamani) points to the various Wai-fu's (wives) in the family; that not satisfying the brat, he offers to go to the market immediately "to purchase some wi-fi for the young master". There's also the track of adolescent Senthil (Luthfudeen, in real life Nassar's son)  who has a crush on his cousin (Twara Desai), but finds himself stymied every chance he tries to get her alone. Meanwhile his own younger brother gets to smooth-talk with the girl (and hilariously name drops Abhishek and Aishwarya as an example of 'older woman' couples).

Most importantly there's the murga aka rooster. He's called Paapa (meaning, baby). All the farm animals in that house have names. The irony is that the family is heartily non-vegetarian. Tamizh is very attached to Paapa, and the affection seems mutual; early scenes show Paapa repeatedly scampering off to her school. So when some ill omens remind Kathir that Paapa had been originally promised as a sacrifice to the village deity, Tamizh resolves to save her fowl friend from the family by means fair or foul. What happens next forms the rest of the movie.

Saivam has the bones of a cliched but pleasant family experience. The bare script is fine and the casting is quite good - I appreciate that they have actual adolescent actors and not obvious adults dressing in "college fashion". But the treatment is too broad. Tamizh is so angelic and self-sacrificing it never rings true. For instance she hides her bruises so as to not worry her grandparents, and at one point calls a childless aunt as "Amma" (mother) to help her dodge an embarrassing situation, which little kid does that? Conversely, the a-hole grandkid is an unmitigated brat, with no other dimensions or plot arc. A multi-threaded converging sequence in the middle where the family goes out in groups to hunt for the missing rooster has a very solid build-up, but ends up an overlong noise-fest.

A narrative of this intimate scope needs to get the micro-details and textures absolutely right, because they are what give personality to a story of this type. Great examples of this are Kaaka Muttai or K.D. So while there were some very good individual moments, I did not find Saivam sufficiently immersive overall to give it a hearty thumbs up. YMMV.

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