Rasavathi

Rasavathi Movie Synopsis: Sadha Siva Pandian, a Siddha doctor with a traumatic past, meets and falls for Soorya. At present, he is leading a peaceful life but things take a turn when a police officer enters his life.

Rasavathi Movie Review: Sadha (Arjun Das) and Soorya (Tanya Ravichandran) have both undergone distressing incidents in their past, which have deeply scarred them. The former is a doctor and the latter is a hotel manager. In Sadha’s case, the metaphorical scar is also literal and pretty discernible. He walks with a limp, and we aren’t immediately told the reason behind it. But later in the film, we delve into his past. We then get to know the agony that he still carries within himself due to what happened to him a while back.

Other than Sadha, the two other spotlighted characters in Rasavathi are Soorya and a cop played by a competent Sujith Shanker. The director, Santhakumar, benevolently gives us ample time to get to know both of these characters. Maybe it can even be said that he grants them a little too much time to establish themselves. Even then, the character of Soorya seems to always be at one arm’s length from us.

We get to know what she does professionally and there's also a backstory about why she chose that job. But there’s constantly a feeling that we don’t know her, even when we know a lot about her. The fault for that isn’t in the performance but in the way she has been presented. At the onset, we buy into the characters played by Arjun and Tanya and the chemistry that they share. The shift in tone between the falling-in-love portions on one hand and the grimness of what’s happening with the cop early in the film has come off well.

But, somewhere down the line, the film falters to find its footing. Certain quips in the film work really well, especially a meta moment featuring Arjun Das and Ramya Subramanian, where the director references his previous work. But, as it progresses, we lose sight of both Soorya and the film as it fails to be cogent.

Rasavathi fails to make a mark, even with many fascinating characters. The makers have indeed created many intriguing characters but then failed to place them in a setting that is as compelling as them.