Haiku review: Femina George in a familiar Tamil romance

Verdict: A well-meaning romance that calls out possessiveness instead of glamorising it, lifted by Sri Devi and Femina George, but too predictable and stretched to leave a mark.

Rating: 2/5

Haiku begins where many love stories end: after a relationship has gone wrong. It asks what a failed first love leaves behind, and whether it can make someone better at loving the next time. It is also the Tamil debut of Femina George, who had Orijinal releasing on the same day back home, and she is one of the best things in it.

The story

Mano (Aegan) is thrown out of his engineering college after a prank goes viral and ends up as the only male student in a women's college in Coimbatore. There he falls for Pavazhakodi, or Kodi (Sri Devi Apalla), but his jealousy and drift slowly sour the romance. Years later, now a design team lead in Chennai, he grows close to Nivedha (Femina George), a trainee carrying bruises from her own past relationship. On a road trip, she gets him to tell her about Kodi. What she notices in that story changes the film's direction, and that is all we will say.

Performances

In his first solo lead, Aegan is likeable and grows believably from a careless student into a steadier adult, though the restraint the role demands leaves little room to judge his range, and the film's idea of a lovably slow hero has been done to death. The first half belongs to Sri Devi Apalla, the Court actor making her Tamil debut. She is natural and lived-in, and makes Kodi more than a memory. The second half is Femina's, and she plays Nivi with a calm, confident warmth that never feels like a newcomer's work, even when the writing pushes her character into awkward corners. Adhirchi Arun adds a few laughs as Mano's friend.

Direction and technical work

Yuvaraj Chinnasamy, who earlier wrote on Aaha Kalyanam, cares more about the lesson than the drama, and his lesson is a good one: possessiveness is a flaw, not proof of love, and people deserve to be loved on their own terms. He says it without preaching. The problem is everything around it. The campus comedy is only mildly funny, the beats of the romance are easy to predict, and the pet names Kanna and Kodi are repeated until they grate. Nivedha's abusive ex exists mostly to push her towards Mano, and the film never really shows us who she is beyond the relationship. On the plus side, Siddhu Kumar's songs carry the softer moments well, and Priyesh Gurusamy's frames are clean and pleasant.

A Malayali stake in a Tamil film

For our readers, Haiku is mainly about Femina George, who made her name in Malayalam with Minnal Murali and here steps into Tamil on the very day her Malayalam film Orijinal opened. She is not playing a token Kerala girl either; Nivi drives the second half and the film's central point. Haiku also comes with a Malayalam trailer, a sign the makers are counting on that crossover. On a crowded October 23, it is a modest film, but a promising first step across the border for its Malayali lead.

What works

Femina George and Sri Devi's assured Tamil debuts
A clear, unpreachy stand against toxic relationships
Siddhu Kumar's music

What doesn't

A template love story with few surprises
A draggy, repetitive second half
Thinly written supporting characters

Final word

A haiku makes its point in three lines; this one takes a long time to get there. Haiku is gentle and sensible, and worth a look for Malayali viewers curious about Femina's Tamil start, but as a romance it rarely rises above the familiar.

Also read: Orijinal gets U/A 13+, with Femina George's Haiku out the same day