‘Retro’ movie review: An excellent Suriya carries Karthik Subbaraj’s admirable experiment

There’s something about Karthik Subbaraj’s audacious mixing of genres that makes you sit up every time. His narratives often hint at taking a less trodden path — remember how a social drama encapsulated the gangster saga in Jigarthanda Double X? With Retro, the filmmaker spun a googly even before the release, calling the Suriya-starrer a ‘love story’ while the promo material teased a violent gangster world. This, of course, is a common fusion in cinema. Yet even calling Retro an action-romance somehow undermines the story Karthik wishes to tell.

Centred on the Buddhist philosophy of Dhammam (meaning ‘universal truth’ or ‘purpose’), the densely-layered Retro tells a personal story of an orphaned ruffian’s search for purpose. This search for Dhammam hangs as an overarching theme as we begin to follow a father-son story, featuring a seasoned crime lord, the self-absorbed Thilakan (a fantastic Joju George), and his adopted son, Paarivel Kannen aka Paari (Suriya), who declares enough is enough and takes a stand against his father. Paari has laid siege to a huge mysterious consignment of ‘Goldfishes’ (it isn’t fish for sure; fans of Arun Matheswaran and Lokesh Kanagaraj can start guessing) that has landed Thilankan in trouble with his politician boss. Getting information about the consignment out of Paari proves to be difficult — Paari is, undoubtedly, one of the best master combatants of this world, which means that Thilakan has to find a way to trap his son.

As Karthik had mentioned, this is also a twisted, if familiar, love story. Paari, as revealed early on, struggles to smile due to a psychosomatic issue. Even on her deathbed, Paari’s mother and Thilakan’s wife, Sandhya (Swasika), wishes only to see her son smile. At her funeral, a young Paari meets Rukmini, who says the same thing his mother said about him smiling. After decades, Paari and Rukmini (Pooja Hegde, in a career-best performance) meet again and fall in love. In a way, this is also a beautiful story about love healing a traumatised soul. This love story finds its conflict when a peace-loving Rukmini sees the ferocious side of Paari.

This, too, is just a part of the story of Retro. Like Jigarthanda Double X, this film is so plot-heavy that all that’s mentioned above happens in less than 40 minutes of this 168-minute film. The screenplay is divided into four episodes: ‘Love,’ which ends with Rukmini leaving Paari; ‘Laughter,’ which takes the story to an island in the Andamans; ‘War,’ details of which I shall not reveal; and another climactic episode.

As with many good Karthik Subbaraj films, the story takes its time introducing us to the many rules and curves of this world and much of the first half safely rides on the shoulders of the performer that is Suriya — we’ll come to that in a bit — and the many mythological metaphors Karthik lets us ponder over. A major highlight of the first half is a brilliantly choreographed 15-minute oner; thankfully, unlike some recent examples, this single-shot technique seems warrented here as it deftly illustrates the two worlds that Paari is swaying between: Rukmini, a world of love, joy and everything sweet; and his father Thilakan, who embraces Paari when he dances to his tunes and berates him as an orphan otherwise. The addition of Jayaram’s character further brings in some scope for comedy.

The real issue with Retro begins in the second half, when Karthik overstuffs his narrative with one too many ideas that seem great on paper but end up muddying the palette. We are introduced to a section of native tribals in the Andamans who have never seen joy in their lives. What Karthik intends to say through them, what his film stands for, and how wonderfully their arcs are tied up are all admirable ideas, but the screenplay braves through some dreary trenches to get there.

Suriya in a still from ‘Retro’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Fresh ideas are often put in a fighting pit with their evil twin. It is clear that Karthik is going after a political issue close to his heart, but instead of adding a convincing narrative layer to it, we are given a generic backstory that gently touches the surface. Spaces that could have been filled with sharp political insight are used for scenes that are unintentionally funny.

Sure, the gladiator fighting pit in Andaman serves as a great setting given Paari’s hard-hitting fists and for who he becomes later, but it could have done without an awfully designed, wannabe-quirky villain. It’s clear the kind of whimsicality Karthik is going for, but Retro is such a sobering film that these quirks sometimes border on the bizarre. Such ideas in the mix only remove the authenticity of the world that was painstakingly put together in the first half. Finding a situation for an item song with Shriya Saran is one thing, but should it precede a spectacularly staged and shot scene at the sea shore? The issues with the screenplay become more apparent when a larger narrative arc vanishes for quite some time and is brought back like an afterthought. Or when you find Rukmini strangely idling on the periphery of the story.

But would these issues spoil how you would remember Retro? Maybe, if it wasn’t a Suriya film. With the star looking his absolute best, Karthik moulds him into an almost mythical presence, a man who convinces us that he can take on dozens of men with ease. The fight choreography deserves praise, and so does Karthik for how he uses his central character’s superpower to creatively cater to Suriya’s fandom. We get our fair share of fan service — like an apt reference to ‘Irumbu Kai Maayavi’, Suriya’s dropped superhero project with Lokesh Kanagaraj. It’s fascinating how, for the most part, Suriya walks around as we know him, talks in tones we are familiar with, and yet manages to appear only as Paari, in all the forms he takes. He becomes a demon who could tear through a crowd, a Krishna who preaches the power of love, a laughing Buddha who could heal people with his laugh, and a Karnan who stood by Dharma.

This is the Suriya we have been wishing to see on screen for a long time. And if not for that underwhelming middle stretch, Retro proves to be the kind of experiment more Tamil filmmakers need to take on. In a way, Retro is just Suriya and Karthik expressing their Dhammams — of the storytellers they wish to be.

Retro is currently running in theatres