Pandiraj’s Memu (2016) Movie Review

Memu is directed Pandiraj, written by Pandiraj, music composed Arol Corelli, cinematography by Balasubrahmaniyam, editing by Praveen, Produced by Sai Manikanta Creations while the movie stars Suriya, Amala Paul, Bindhu Madhavi,  Mudasupatti, Munishkanth, Vidhya, Master Nishesh, Baby Vaishnavi.

Censor Certificate: U & Runtime: 127 Minutes

A freemake or unofficial remake film doesn’t really provide me enough excitement to write about in details. And Memu remains one of those inspired movies which fearlessly take the main idea from another director’s work and serves it with some extra cheese to the viewer as an original creation. Yes, Pandiraj has scratched a lot out of Aamir Khan’s classic “Taare Zameen Par” for Memu.

The story of Memu revolves around two hyper active kids Naina [Vaishnavi] daughter of Engineer Karthik & Bindu Madhavi and Navin [Nishesh] son of Bank Manager Ram Doss & Vidya Pradeep, facing troubles in studies and a teacher comes into their life as an morning breeze. The story underlines completely on the two deficit Hyperactive Disordered kids, their thoughts and is a journey into imaginary world of their mind. Especially the film stretches on a beautiful point of how kids are not only losing their best years of their life but also losing their creative thoughts, and become clones of this mad racing world.

Movie starts off on a interesting off beat note but within the next 15 minutes it was pretty clear that the director repeatedly has made a mediocre product which unsuccessfully tries to main a difficult balance between a commercial and children’s film exactly like his last few attempts, which failed to make an impact on the audience. Our audiences have seen a some films on this subject of “Naughty Kids-Headache to Parents-Hostel life-A teacher like figure gives them space for creative learning-to bring the best in them.” lead by Taare Zameen Par directed by Aamir Khan. So the key was not only the potential plot but its innovative execution by the director Pandiraj which could have win over the viewers with its fine blend of humor, issues and solution to the problems.

Unfortunately, Pandiraj fails to portray these three important aspects of the subject in his uneven script or direction impressively. Due to which Memu can easily be called a over preached, repetitive and uninteresting venture giving you much less in return of your expectations. No doubt, the film begins well on a different note, straight away coming to the topic “Worlds best school for child is mother’s womb”, “How government schools will improve if govt. employees are forced to make their children study in them”, “How hospitals force you to undergo tests for no reason”, “why parents shouldn’t live their dreams through their children” & “The private education system is failing as its busy making student succeed in exams rather making the students pursue their dreams” but as it progresses, the whole excitement around the points simply vanishes off because of its feeble writing, many silly characters and all inspired developments in its narration. And it even fails to provide proper solution to the issues in the end.

The film fails to make any long lasting impact mainly because of the confusion between its “Hyper Active Kids Issue”, “No proper understanding while Pregnancy” & the “Education Policy Problem”. Basically revolving around parental issue with active kids only, the script takes too many liberties in its execution of an inspired idea and as a result the proceedings on the screen look like predictable and dragged at times. The movie needed innocence of films like Kakka Muttai and Dhanak, but the content looked a bit formulaic. The efforts to add humor with kleptomaniac Ram Doss & few small characters take away the depth of the story. I was forced to imagine, what happens when introvert Mili (Amala Paul in Malayalam movie) succeeds in her life and comes across two Ishaan Avasti (Taare Zameen Par Character) in her teaching career accompanied by Suriya to fill the space created by Aamir Khan. While Taare Zameen Par magic made you go for tissues, Memu doesn’t even have that magic in it to carry the film forward. But must say, the slight changes done by Pandiraj for Memu sound impressive, but aren’t that impressive on screen. Musically you don’t mind watching few forgettable songs while enjoying the performances of the lead child actors, but the background score could have been better as per the requirement of its theme. In other words, I strongly feel that if you are ready to gamble with a new point why not try giving it another edge with an innovative musical score. Praveen’s editing is not upto the mark as the movie falls into slow pace often. Makers nicely handled the Telugu dialogue translations. Balasubrahmanyam Camera work fits the tone of the film. Production Values of the film are fine. The child actors Vaishnavi and Nishesh make a decent debut. Karthik Kumar, Bindhu Madhavi, Ram Doss and Vidhya Pradeep are promising in their respective roles. The cameos by Suriya and Amala Paul are alright in their balmy characterizations.

The ideas of Memu are good, sound logical and get my full support too. But movie gives you much less than expected with its inspired first half and over preachy second half. All in all, Memu could have been about dream, aspiration and trust but instead it remains plain mawkish version of Taare Zameen Par.

Survi Review: 1.5/5

Theatrical Trailer: