Super Deluxe (2019).

SPOILERS!!

Vaembu and Mugil are walking back home, after having escaped a lecherous man. A dead body brings them together and makes them realise that there is more to their relationship than mutual indifference. Vaembu, understandably, looks relieved and happy, even. She looks up and sees Leela looking at her from a hospital window painted blue. They exchange kind glances and go their separate way. Did Vaembu know that she is saved by a decision Leela’s made years ago? Did Leela know that she helped Shilpa’s curse come true, the same Shilpa who pushed Arputham towards doubt and, eventually, diamonds? Do any of them know what they did for each other? Does anyone?

Super Deluxe, then, can be seen as a sepia-toned take on the butterfly effect. Chaos doesn’t seem as scary because order isn’t far away. Interdependency isn’t a leverage anymore because one person’s bad luck is going to help the other. The film features four stories: Vaembu and her husband Mugil, Shilpa, and her wife and son, Leela and her husband, and a bunch of teenage boys in pursuit of porn. Things slowly take a dark turn only to help the characters realise that, sometimes, at least sometimes, a happy ending is just around the corner.

Written by Nalan Kumarasamy, Neelan, Mysskin, and Thyagarajan Kumararaja, who is also the director, the film is almost three hours long and, understandably, has a lot to say. It touches on topics as intimate as infidelity, sexual gratification to topics as universal as patriarchy, the system, god, and, well, the universe. The issue, if there were to be one, with films that are multi-threaded is that they can get a bit much and shuffling through all of them with precision and meaningful layering might become impossible. This is where Kumararaja proves himself as a filmmaker worth the praise. The film manages to keep the individual threads tethered–even if they aren’t aware of it–by using an object/person or a theme. A man who doesn’t recognise his wife and a woman who doesn’t recognise her husband, or a TV or a Berlin [disturbingly over-the-top Bagavathi Perumal]. No matter how busy and messy the plot might get, every beat hits the right spot, every single time. Leela—Ramya Krishna’s screen presence is unbeatable—could’ve brought up her teddy bear argument anywhere she wants to, but no. It has to be the last thing she says to Dhana Sekhara for it to land. And land it does.

There are a few parts of the film that are dramatic, but the drama doesn’t come from the dialogue, rather it comes from us, the audience. Leela is trying to get her son to wake up after an injury and he does, only to call her a whore. She doesn’t act like that’s a big moment—it isn’t for a mother holding a bleeding son—but we absorb the sting even as she refuses to. Or the way Mugil’s character moves forward like a maze with every other scene redefining his humanity. He agrees to help his wife, good guy. He immediately agrees to Berlin’s offer, so maybe not. He only starts protesting after his wife locks him to the car so he can feign helplessness, just a selfish guy. Only Fahad Faasil could’ve pulled this enigmatic man who loves himself over everyone else without breaking a sweat.

Even though some of it sits oddly in the scheme of things, most plot points have a sharpness about them, making it hard to ignore or question their presence. Like Mugil’s sudden bursts of political commentary where he compares one’s love for language to one’s caste pride. That plot detail ends with him admitting that his acting career is a mere training ground for his future as a politician. And suddenly it all falls in place. Same goes with the relationship between Jyothi—Gayathri’s understated and internalized performance adds the much-needed depth—and Shilpa—Vijay Sethupathi proves yet again that any character, no matter how controversial, is safe in his hands.

The way Jyothi lets out a smirk when Shilpa grabs at her falling pallu makes us realise that there is more to their relationship than we are being let on. From the way Jyothi follows Shilpa to the changing room and from the way Shilpa doesn’t stop her, we understand that despite everything they both are still comfortable with each other. Few words are spoken and decisions are made without making us privy to them, but we understand. And when Jyothi finally speaks and says, “I don’t know how to live with a man like you”, Shilpa replies, “As a woman, I understand your plight.” Shilpa feels for her wife, but she isn’t prepared to hide again, not anymore. In between all this is a kid who just wants to hear a ‘Ding Dong’ from the right person, so he can run and open the door with a wide grin. Everything is as outlandish as it is humane.

Kumararaja’s screenplay moves from one tale to another effortlessly. It feels almost as if we are sitting surrounded by the characters and we are letting them tell us their story bit by bit, one after another. At times we can even witness one story spilling into another as if they aren’t done talking and some other character has cut them off rudely. Arputham finds diamonds in the Jesus statue he hoards and the scene cuts to the kids where the TV in the background talks about an Albert who used to search for treasures hidden deep under the Indian Ocean. Apart from being a seamless segue, it also creates the idea of oneness the film is ultimately striving towards. Sathyaraj Natarajan’s editing shines in moments like these and there are quite a few of them.

The film begins with Vaembu having sex with her ex, but the camera hovers over the room. Instead of cheap gratification, the camera chooses to give us more information about Vaembu—Samantha shines as this morally ambiguous woman who isn’t afraid to face the consequences. Nirav Shah and P. S. Vinod’s cinematography makes it all the more effecting. The way the poison bottle covers the face of the boy who is about to get chosen to do the deed is clever as well. Sound design by Tapas Nayak keeps the film grounded at the weirdest of moments. The boys meet an otherworldly girl and we still hear a street vendor shouting his way through the road. The world isn’t going to stop, not even for an alien. The BGM by Yuvan Shankar Raja does the same job as well. Adding more context to an already tense moment, but it somehow never feels heavy-handed. None of it does. Not even the uncharacteristically bland and long scenes with Arputham and his bruised belief system—Mysskin’s anguish fits this character like a glove. They are infuriatingly long, but they are supposed to be.

Super Deluxe. The name on an ice cream cart. Super Deluxe. The name of a C-grade film where a scientist talks about life only to say ‘It all comes down to sex’. Even though the film itself isn’t as simplistic, it does choose a simple ending. Acceptance is easy when you are a kid, but won’t you grow up? Is Leela’s confidence in her past remedy enough for her son’s trauma? Mugil seems happy now, but will he be tomorrow? But then again this maybe the characters saying, ‘Fuck the tiger, Fuck the fall, Fuck the snake, Fuck them all, let’s lick the honey while we can’. Aagha, indeed.

Take the sequence where Shilpa curses Berlin. A powerful and simmering shot where four men struggle to pull her back. It is a long shot as well, but the struggle is important. Shilpa having to hide her true strength while transitioning is a subtle yet powerful commentary on what it means to be a woman in this world. The film may not say anything revolutionary, but the way it chooses to say that things that it does is nothing short of a cinematic adhbutham (miracle in Telugu).