Singappenney

Singappenney Movie Synopsis: Singappenney is the story of 15-year-old Thenmozhi who has to fight against several obstacles in her journey to become a national-level athlete.

Singappenney Movie Review: It doesn’t take much to guess what a film named Singappenney that’s releasing on Women’s Day will be about. The JSB Sathish directorial might not have been made by a woman, but it is made to and for women. The film follows the journey of 15-year-old Thenmozhi (Aarthi Saravana Kumar) as she fights against innumerable odds to become a national-level athlete.

Singappenney can be referred to as a sports drama as much as a movie on the emancipation of women. Where the movie really triumphs is in its portrayal of sports. In a rare occurrence as far as our cinema is concerned, training montages and athletic events don’t seem manufactured at all. Maybe casting real-life athletes who have actually competed and won medals has really helped the film soar.

The casting of proven athletes like Madhavi Latha and Aarathi Swaminathan has also significantly helped the film. It also helps that the lead role of Thenmozhi has been essayed by an athlete. The lived-in quality that these trained sportspersons exude could never have been matched by a professional actor.

The lead characters, the mentor played by Shilpa Manjunath and the mentee played by Aarthi Saravana Kumar, are fully fleshed out. The former takes Thenmozhi from her village to Chennai, coaches her, and is even willing to sacrifice her career for her sake. Her character acts as a ‘saviour’ in the film. Therefore, she can come across as domineering to some and benevolent to others.

What doesn’t work in Singappenney is the characterisation of the antagonists. It’s too much of a one-note villainy in the most archetypal sense of the word. These are the moments when the film goes off track. The film falls into the cliched belief that a villain should not just be someone who doesn’t want the protagonist to win a competition. Rather, he should say overly dramatic dialogues and have exaggerated mannerisms.

Irrespective of that, Singappenney is a good watch and is made with good intentions. There are numerous scenes and dialogues in the film about empowering women, but none of them come across as if they have been added just for the sake of being woke.