Nota Movie Review by Praveena | Vijay Devarakonda, Mehreen Pirzada, Nassar, Sathyaraj, Yashika Anand |Nota Review
Nota Movie Review by Praveena | Vijay Devarakonda, Mehreen
Pirzada, Nassar, Sathyaraj, Yashika Anand |Nota Review
#VijayDeverakonda #NOTA #NOTAReview
NOTA Movie Synopsis: Sitting chief minister Vinodhan
(Nasser), who is facing imprisonment in an illegal assets case, makes his son,
Varun (Vijay Deverakonda) the temporary CM until his return. The disinterested
young man gradually wakes up to the sorry state of affairs and tries to bring
in a change.
NOTA Movie Review: The initial set-up of NOTA is pretty
similar to the one in Bharat Ane Nenu, where the reluctant son of a chief
minister has to take over the mantle from his father. Even their family set-up
is similar. He is the son of the first wife, who is no more, and resides in
London. There is a step-mother and a very young sibling. But there the
comparison ends. For, Varun isn't an idealist like Bharat. The first time we
see him, he is partying like there's no tomorrow. When he is told that he
should take over as the chief minister, he remarks he doesn't even know who the
governor is. When the governor asks him about the portfolios of his ministers,
he is clueless. And he needs someone else to dress him up in dhoti, that
trademark costume of a politician.
More than the prospect of running the state, what worries
him more are the flex boards that have been put up by his party men. One has
his shaking hands with Donald Trump, and another sees him dressed up as
Baahubali. And he is bothered about his friends turning these into memes on
Facebook!
The plot is all about how this happy-go-lucky youngster
realises his responsibilties and acts for the welfare of the people. But NOTA
doesn't flesh out this transformation in a gradual way, giving us scenes that
show the evolution of this character. All we get is one scene - a tragedy that
is staged in a perfunctory manner - to show us that Varun is someone who cares
for others. We do get a hint of this earlier, when we are told that he takes
care of a few orphan children, but what really makes us buy into Varun's
new-found maturity is Vijay Deverakonda's assured performance. The film marks
his Tamil debut, but the actor does a competent job; there is very little of the
slang that we find in actors from other states, though his modulation needs a
little work.
The political scenes, some of which recall Mudhalvan, are
the film’s strengths; in fact, its only strengths. For, the emotional drama
between the characters is quite weak. The chief reason for this is that the
characters, including Varun, are underwritten. Anand Shankar keeps giving us
promising leads - a chief minister who is referred to as Rowdy CM, a political
opponent (Sanchana Natrajan, impressive) who is equally young and more
scheming, a counselor (Sathyaraj, in a Cho-like character) who could have a
more personal interest in Varun - but he doesn't follow them through.
Surprisingly, the film holds on to a revelation about the relationship between
this counselor and Vinodhan until the climax, when we easily guess it right in
the scene when it is first brought in. Instead, the director devotes more time
on a hawala angle that is hardly dramatic. The lack of a strong antagonist,
too, results in a political drama that is less punchy than it should have been.
If NOTA works to the extent it does, it is because it
unfolds like the highlights reel of the absurd political happenings that Tamil
Nadu has been witnessing over the past two to three years. Anand Shankar gives us
a steady stream of references to contemporary political events - a chief
minister (his party functionaries bow so low before him that he worries that
they would get his face wrong when they install his statue!) facing trial
installing a proxy to safeguard his position, the flex board culture, the
propaganda that parties do with their respective channels, the Chennai floods
and the sticker controversy, the hospital drama, the resort farce, a godman
trying to remote control the government, and so on. These moments deservingly
get the cheers, for, in them, we see an outlet to show our frustrations. We are
supposed to be satisfied with these digs at contemporary politics. While that
is certainly a low bar to clear, given these turbulent times, it feels OK to buy
into the fantasy of someone coming along and leading us towards a better
future.
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