Movie Review - Sila Samayangalil

A 2018 Tamil movie. Director: Priyadarshan.

Facts on the movie:

• No songs to derail you from the movie’s storyline.
• Slow and realistic pitch.
• Very less dialogues.
• Bouquet of lessons.
• Informative.
• Concept-oriented and not Hero-centric.

Applause:

• Prakash Raj and Sriya Reddy.
• Well-crafted screenplay.
• Indoor shooting except for two scenes.
• No obscenity.
• All characters fit easily in their roles and knew to act their emotions on the face so well.

Storyline:

In a busy medical diagnostic center in the heart of Chennai city, the day starts early. People are given their token numbers and the medical tests are being done. The results are due in the evening. 

The counter clerk is in some cash emergency and is doing all she could to keep herself collected in her head, but unfortunately is not able to. All the sources of money were blocked and she is desperately trying to find a way to get the extra cash.

Seven patients whose home or office is far off from this center choose to wait in the waiting room for the results until the counter opens at 5:00 P.M. They were all super tensed about the results of the test because they had a reason to believe that they may have caught an HIV infection. 

The movie has a lot of information about this disease injected into the dialogue flow without making it sound like a documentary, yet powerfully drilling into the viewer's mind.

During the conversations and the progress of the day, we come to know about each one’s unfortunate events of the past that lead them to believe they may have been affected by AIDS, the disease caused by an HIV infection. With each one’s story getting unfolded it would seem sure that they may have gotten the infection and would make the viewer feel sorry for the incident and for the person. Naturally, all of them including the viewers would want to know their results earlier than 5:00 P.M. 

So the seven patients decide to contact the counter clerk. She takes this as the last option to resolve her money debt. She demands a bribe of Rs.5000 from them to flick the results from the lab in-charge before the slated hour. 

The chief of the diagnostic center gets in the way of this clerk’s obligation to give out the results for those patients. The clerk returns to her desk and says only one of them is affected but does not mention the name.

The last few minutes of the movie are about the expressions, emotions, and thoughts of each of the seven patients in the waiting area hoping against hopes that he is not the infected one! 

Counter opens and each one collects his result. Six of them are ‘Negative’. We are sure they are happy and are convinced that they will never repeat the mistakes that lead them to see through this day at the lab’s waiting hall. 

The seventh man is so shocked to go up to the counter to receive his reports. He feels doomed that he is going to see the fatefully slaying ‘positive’ word in his report. 

Whether he got his report, was he infected, who was with him when he knew the result, what happened behind the scenes? are questions for you to watch and find out.

Lessons:

• A little lie is okay to keep someone happy but never okay to save ourselves a trouble at the stake of the some one's peace of mind.
• Reckless living leads to unsolicited fears and demonic health hazards.
• Drinking can lead to disastrous untold miseries.
• A lone woman traveler needs to take care in deserted places. Stop being too feminist in arguing that women should be treated like queens and human beings! Sadly it is not true!!!! It is okay to be cautious than sorry.
• It is possible to like someone as a friend in a short time and equally possible to lose the person without a trace. Keep making friends and touching lives of others.
• How much is too much in the name of romantic love should be clearly chalked out in the minds of youngsters today.
• Students should remember that they are students and they have a whole life of being responsible, loving, and caring person to all those connected with them - near and dear, whether here or far away.
• Everything does not always let us see a clear reason. All we know is we are in a soup and it takes a lot to see through the inevitable.
• Cross the bridge when it comes.
• People who matter do not mind... And people who mind do not matter.
• Whether you want to take it or leave it, Life definitely reels forward with you on the road and never backward!! 
• Our life is more precious than we care to believe. Let us not think that other people make or break our life. 
• No matter what, there is always a way out!!! 
• There is only a new beginning to every interim end that we seem to face.  

Overall, a good movie with a bunch of reverberating messages said ever so subtly that make you wish for a different climax. 

Had it been different, it would not have made the impact. Or maybe it would have still made the impact!. I do not know because sometimes ( sila samayangalil), some things ( sila vishayangal) do not have to be reasonable enough for us to comprehend. 

We do not have to understand everything in life, every time. Some times, LIFE simply is what it IS.  Live on! with lots of hope because ‘Hope' is better and easier to keep than ‘Despair’, as we really have ‘Life’ till we breathe our last.