Seethakathi Review: Vijay Sethupathi makes an impact in this all-art, emotional magic

Vijay Sethupathi never ceases to surprise us.

In his 25th movie (yes, that’s surprising too that he had managed to deliver great pieces in a short span of time), Vijay plays Ayya Adhimoolam to whom art is close to his heart.

Vijay Sethupathi packs a lot of stuff in his performance and he is simply the one you can count on for any kind of movie he makes a screen appearance.

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In Seethakathi, his screen time is pretty much limited (considering the run time of the movie), but still, he manages to steal our heart!

Director Balaji Tharaneetharan’s experimental attempt is Seethakathi – an experiment that has went really well.

You have emotions, you have the passion for art and the grief that’s caused by the inability to brace certain things in the industry, you have dark comedy – and what not.

The movie doesn’t fill you up with too many details though and you are in for a pleasant ride. 

The pace of Seethakathi might bother you as the director takes his own sweet time to establish the story. But in the end you will come out feeling that it was totally worth it to sit through.

Vijay Sethupathi gets under the skin of Ayya who takes acting very seriously. He considers theatre his world.

Watching the theatres and the art of stage acting go towards a slow death is something Ayya cannot tolerate.

He is put forth the option of trying out the acting in cinema. How he emotionally fights off the idea first and then moves on to take the chance is narrated in a brilliant way.

Vijay Sethupathi has given his full self to let Balaji take the lead. The narration and screenplay is all where Balaji shines and the actors have done their job to fit in well.

Mouli plays his best in emoting and going along with Ayya.

The first twenty minutes of the movie is spent in giving us the back story of how Ayya has travelled through years in stage acting. The narration is intriguing, yet a bit slow paced.

The screenplay gets a nice twist when Ayya, who has been resisting putting his foot forward in cinema acting, decides to take it up.

There are some quirky moments here and there and they will help you relate to the characters and their deep emotions.

Not just that, you have enough comedy to make you feel light and as well as grasp the strong and an intense message that the movie is delivering to you.

We are now totally on a different tuning, enjoying entertainment (cinema) in big screens that comes with lots of technical enhancements.

But this movie takes you back in time narrating how the once popular form of art is now almost no more and how we are clueless about it.

The movie also tells you how you can embrace the old art while still enjoying the technically sound cinema!

Though a bit slow paced, Seethakathi hits you with an impact, leaving you with mixed feelings. And the movie is quite entertaining as well!