A London-to-Tamil Nadu romantic comedy with familiar ingredients
“Sandakkari”
– Review
Vemal takes up a job as the assistant to Shriya, a senior executive at a London-based company. Despite being a gold-medallist engineering graduate, he accepts the position because he wants her help in launching an app he has developed. However, working under Shriya proves difficult because of her short temper and demanding personality.
Shriya soon faces a professional crisis when her London visa expires. She has to return to India to apply for an extension, putting her chances of securing the company’s CEO position at risk.
Looking for a way around the problem, Shriya comes up with a plan: she will pretend to marry Vimal, who holds permanent UK residency, in the hope of securing her own long-term status in London. What she doesn’t realise is that Vemal has an agenda of his own. He joins hands with one of Shriya’s professional rivals and plans to use the situation to derail her career.
Vemal agrees to Shriya’s proposal, but attaches a condition of his own — she must travel with him to Tamil Nadu and meet his parents. Once Shreya accepts the condition and accompanies him, the two competing plans begin to collide. Whether Shriya manages to achieve her objective or Vemal gets the upper hand forms the crux of ‘Sandakkari’.
Vemal essentially remains in familiar territory. Whether the backdrop is rural Tamil Nadu or London, there isn’t much variation in his appearance or performance style. He delivers the kind of straightforward commercial performance audiences have come to associate with him.
Shriya fits the character’s exterior well. Her character is short-tempered, arrogant and dismissive of the people around her, and the actress manages to convey those traits reasonably well. However, while the character is expected to undergo an emotional transformation through love, the performance doesn’t always provide enough depth to make that transition convincing.
The supporting cast provides some stability. Prabhu and Uma Padmanabhan, as Vimal’s parents, bring their experience to the family portions. Punnagai Poo Geetha, Sathyan, KR Vijaya, Rekha, Dev Gill, Crane Manohar and Mahanadhi Shankar also contribute effectively in their respective roles.
Cinematographer RP Gurudev makes good use of both the London locations and the Tamil Nadu village setting. The songs, in particular, receive a colourful visual treatment that adds to the film’s commercial appeal.
Amrish’s music provides several listenable numbers, while the background score is appropriately aligned with the scenes. Dinesh Ponraj’s editing follows the director’s structure but doesn’t do much to add momentum or enhance the narrative flow.
Writer-director R Mathesh attempts to build the film around the romance that develops inside a woman who initially appears too consumed by anger and ambition to fall in love. Unfortunately, the chemistry between Vimal and Shreya doesn’t quite come together, and the screenplay struggles to make their romantic journey emotionally convincing.
That said, the filmmaker keeps the proceedings accessible by balancing romance and comedy across the contrasting settings of London and rural Tamil Nadu. The result is a fairly straightforward commercial entertainer rather than a romance driven by emotional depth.
There are also a few questions regarding the film’s internal logic. Vemal, who studied in Tamil Nadu before moving to London, is said to have obtained permanent residency through his family, even though his parents continue to live in Tamil Nadu. Shriya, meanwhile, has occupied a senior position at a major London company for several years but has yet to secure permanent residency. The film doesn’t offer a particularly convincing explanation for this situation.
If these logical inconsistencies are set aside, ‘Sandakkari’ remains an uncomplicated commercial film that brings together familiar faces, romance, comedy and family sentiment across two contrasting worlds.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
