Film Review - Sema: Not as good as the title

The makers have stayed true to that (only that though). Kuzhandhai (GV Prakash), is the protagonist of the film, who is a workaholic — he sells vegetables, fruits and even fish in a village near Tiruchy. The story opens with a fortune-teller telling his mom Aaravalli (Sujatha Sivakumar) that he has to get married within the next three months, else he will remain single for the next six years. As soon as Kuzhandhai learns of this from his neighbours, he asks his mother to hasten the process. Along with his friend Homakundam (Yogi Babu) and Aaravalli, he goes to meet a few prospective brides but all of them reject his proposal. These scenes make for the first 45 minutes of the film but thankfully weren’t a drag due to Yogi Babu and GV’s comedy portions that worked well.

Finally, they get a proposal from a family near Tanjore. Though Kuzhandhai is convinced that she’ll reject him too, Magizhini ends up liking him and their wedding is fixed. Post this, the film towards the interval becomes too slow and even the comedy loses its earlier effect. 

Somewhere along the way, Magizhini’s father ‘Attack Balu’ borrows money from everyone in the town and has huge debts to pay off. Hearing of this, the son of a local MLA who is interested in marrying Magizhini, approaches her father with a proposal and the promise of clearing his debts. Balu agrees to the deal and asks Kuzhandhai’s family to break the engagement. Aaravalli gets depressed and attempts to commit suicide but Kuzhandhai rises to the occasion and challenges Balu —  he vows he will take revenge against the man for this insult. 

Even though the plot drags in the second half. the characters make up for it with their comic sense and performance. It comes as a surprise that how a director like Pandiraj, who penned dialogues for the film, wasn’t able to do much justice to the plot. 

Though GV’s performance is impressive, it is definitely not a film that you would expect him to be a part of, especially after Naachiyaar. His screen presence and music come across as a plus for the film though. With big projects up his sleeve, GV is better off at doing unconventional films like his previous release rather than films like Sema. Yogi Babu, more than a comedian, has played one of the leads in the film. But his jokes are getting too stereotypical, especially the body-shaming dialogues that we have seen in almost all of his earlier outings — he really must rise beyond such dialogues. Arthana Binu reminds one of Keerthy Suresh and managed to impress the audience with her acting skills. She is set for a long run in K’wood. Character artistes Mansoor Ali Khan and Kovai Sarala weren’t consistent in making viewers laugh. Once again, Sema is a film whose slow and a predictable plot (which has been done and dusted in Tamil cinema) let these actors down as well. 

Sema might be the title of the film but it doesn’t resonate with what the audience feel.

CAST: GV Prakash Kumar, Arthana Binu, Mansoor Ali Khan, Kovai Sarala, Yogi Babu and Sujatha Sivakumar

DIRECTOR: Vallikanth

MUSIC DIRECTOR: GV Prakash Kumar

RATING: 2/5

SYNOPSIS: While kuzhandhaivelu aka Kuzhandhai’s marriage proposals to many women get rejected he comes to realise that Magizhini likes him. After courting for a while, the du gets engaged, however, her father ‘Attack Balu’ breaks the betrothal. Will Kuzhandhai and Magizhini convince Balu and get married or will they part their ways?