Suriya – actor vs star
Hello and welcome to the south talkies podcast.
Soorarai Pottru released on Prime a few weeks back and has received an overwhelmingly positive response from fans and critics. It’s an extremely well made film with good writing and top performances from all the actors.
Suriya, especially, has given a splendid performance, in a character that has given him ample scope to bring out various emotions. I felt like Suriya the actor had finally been rediscovered after being in hiding all these years.
I watched Soorarai Pottru a day after its release on Prime and a couple of weeks later again. After my second watch, three questions entered my head.
- Is Suriya the only one among the current crop of stars, who has done roles where he is shown to be partially or completely vulnerable?
- Soorarai Pottru has no “mass” fight scenes where Suriya beats up 10-15 men at one go. Yet he comes across as more macho than any of his earlier films (even the loud Singam series) or even any of her other heroes in recent times. Is he the only star, again, to make a movie with no mass elements? Vaaranam Aayiram comes to mind. We will look at this in detail.
- What works for Suriya in his films? Him being a star or him being an actor, playing the role that the story demands? This I think is the biggest question as we look at his rather interesting filmography, which saw a bit of a lull till Soorarai Pottru.
To answer these questions, we need to consider when Suriya first became a star. In my opinion, and I guess most will agree, Suriya graduated from an actor to a star with the massive success of Kaakha Kaakha. With Pithamagan, Perazhagan and Aaytha Ezhuthu following immediately, his acting and star value just kept increasing.
Soon he did Ghajini, which was a massive blockbuster and Suriya was praised for his acting as a short term memory loss patient.
At this point, people started hoping that Suriya could be the heir to Kamal Hassan as the actor who would experiment and give them new and innovative stories on screen, and to an extent Suriya did. He started following the Kamal formulas of doing one “mass, commercial” movie, followed by an innovative, experimental movie.
Look at this sequence starting from Perazhagan.
Aaytha Ezhuthu.
Maayavi.
Ghajini.
Aaru.
Sillunu oru Kaadhal.
Vel.
Vaaranam Aayiram.
However after Vaaranam Aayiram, Suriya went on a spree of commercial movies.
Ayan.
Aadhavan.
Singam.
He did Rakta Charita 2 in between, but judging from the limited commercial response, he went back to a sort of safe zone. If you look at all the movies Suriya has done after this point, they have a very similar character, with NGK being a prime example. They start off great, promising a different story or at least a different treatment to an existing template, but ends up becoming a somewhat dull in between experiment to commercial film. I am obviously excluding the loud Singam franchise from this.
My guess is that Suriya for whatever reason – commercial aspects, or the idea to entertain his fan base makes sure that the plot includes certain commercial elements, like say a mass fight or some sort of a noble angle like in Thaana Serndha Kootam. Suriya could have done a honest remake of Special 26, without the big fight in the climax. I am pretty sure it would have still worked.
This sort of in between is what made NGK a big disappointment, and TSK, even though it worked, not so great.
Thankfully, in Soorarai Pottru, Suriya has not attempted to massify his role or the plot and has stuck to what Sudhar Kongara has laid out. Yeah, there were people who had issues with him farming in the movie, or having a self-respect marriage, calling himself a socialist and promising to break the caste barrier. For me, these largely fit into the plot and did not necessarily act as dog whistle or a mass factor.
For example, the farming is shown to be a constant source of his income, since he had given up the airport job, and the caste barrier dialogue was in line with Paresh Goswami’s character not wanting people of lower station to enjoy the same benefits as people with privilege and money did.
Soorarai Pottru does not have a single fight scene – in every physical altercation with security guards, Nedumaran is subdued. He cannot throw a fire extinguisher to the first floor, is punished when at the Air Force camp for speaking against his superior officer, is slapped by his mother when not in time for his father’s death and asked by his wife to not have a male ego in asking her for money. In fact after the intermission, she tells him that losers should not shout.
In other words, Nedumaran is as realistic as he comes. Of course he plans to sneak into the President’s meeting, but come on this is still a movie.
Coming back to my original point, the reason Soorarai Pottru largely works, is because the writers and the director stuck to reasonable logic and did not fall for any mass traps. In my opinion, this is what works for Suriya. Yes you can have a Singam in between now and then, but he shines in roles that are written keeping the plot at the centre – and not with mass moments in mind.
This does not mean no action elements – going back to a Kaakha Kaakha, or a Ghajini or the perfect example of Ayan, look at the well written and enacted roles. A good mix of action and vulnerability. In Kaakha Kaakha, he’s a super cop who is nervous when it comes to talking with a pretty woman he likes. Now that is something Suriya will ace.
So the point of this podcast?
Will Suriya now go back to the Kamal formula of alternating between mass and experiment or continue with plot based stories? He’s doing Vaadivaasal with Vettrimaran and then apparently Aruva with Hari. It looks like he is.
I only hope his experiments in the future are truly sincere and not meddled with. We will have a lot more Soorarai Pottru in the future then, and that is an exciting prospect.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
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