Aruvi

Aruvi (pronunciation ) (English: Stream) is a 2017 Indian Tamil sociopolitical drama film written and directed by Arun Prabu Purushothaman, in his debut film. The film portrays the events that occur in the life of Aruvi (Aditi Balan), a rebellious young woman who seeks to expose the consumerist and misogynistic nature of modern civilisation, while attempting to find meaning during a period of existential crisis.

Aruvi
Poster
Directed byArun Prabu Purushothaman
Produced byS. R. Prabhu
S. R. Prakashbabu
Bhaumik Gondaliya
Written byArun Prabu Purushothaman
StarringAditi Balan
Anjali Varadhan
Lakshmi Gopalaswamy
Music byBindhu Malini
Vedanth Bharadwaj
CinematographyShelley Calist
Edited byRaymond Derrick Crasta
Production
company
Distributed byDream Warrior Pictures
Release date
  • 14 June 2016 (2016-06-14) (Shanghai)
  • 15 December 2017 (2017-12-15)
Running time
130 minutes
CountryIndia
LanguageTamil

Aruvi was produced by Dream Warrior Pictures and was released globally on 15 December 2017. It was praised for the performances of the cast and the film's direction.

Synopsis

A gentle girl born and brought up amidst the ever-growing eco-social-consumeristic environment finds it difficult to fit in the society. She decides to take it hard on the people. What she does is the rest of the story. Aruvi speaks about the social anguish of a girl.[1][2]

Plot

The film begins with Aruvi and Emily being interrogated by law enforcement officer Shakeel (Mohammed Ali Baig) who suspects Aruvi to be part of a terrorist organization. Aruvi's parents and friends are called for interrogation who talk about Aruvi's childhood and adolescence. She is a lovingly raised, innocent girl from a middle-class family. Things take a turn as her life when her family turns against and turns her out of the house accusing her of having brought shame to the family.

Her college friend Jessy takes her in for a while, then moves to a hostel and lives with Emily, who is a transgender woman. They work for a man called Arulmani as tailors in an NGO. One day, she goes to Arulmani crying, asking for a loan of 2 lakh rupees, as her father has suffered a minor cardiac arrest. She then takes off and doesn't return. Occasionally, she undergoes touch therapy with a swamiji who uses hypnosis to heal stress.

Emily approaches the producers of "solvathellam sathyam," a reality show that showcases people's problems on TV. She complains about three men who raped her friend Aruvi. The Assistant Director Peter (Pradeep Antony) agrees to telecast their problem and calls the three men for interrogation.

Next morning, shooting starts as the host (Lakshmi Gopalaswamy) asks Aruvi to narrate what happened to her. Aruvi then explains that the three men are Jessy's father Joseph, Arulmani and the swamiji. Joseph had sexually abused her when she took shelter in his house. Arulmani had taken advantage of Aruvi's situation when she begged for a loan and the swamiji had hypnotized and raped her. Aruvi then reveals that she has had AIDS for the past 2 years. The infection seems to have entered through an accident, where an open wound was exposed to a carrier of HIV. She meets her friend Emily in an NGO as both of them have AIDS. Aruvi asks the three men to apologize, but Lakshmi turns against Aruvi, accusing her of intentionally infecting those men. Aruvi is appalled and states everything wrong with the society and the unnecessary stereotypes that every common man has to conform to, in order to fit into this consumeristic world.

The director uses all this drama to his advantage as this would improve his show's TRP rating. Aruvi pulls out a gun and shoots the director in the arm. Later, she calms herself and apologizes to everyone, but as she gets up to leave, Arulmani tackles her and hits Emily. This maddens Aruvi and she points the gun at him and takes everyone hostage. Hearing the gun shots, police start surrounding the studio suspecting terrorist activity. Aruvi then plays "spin the bottle." Whoever the bottle points at, should do whatever Aruvi says, else they would be shot. Aruvi then makes everyone do silly things as she watches, in her own way of getting back at the society that forced her into so much pain. As a part of the game, Aruvi asks Peter to propose to her which he does not do properly; so she asks him to narrate a story and he tells a story as follows: An old man happily spends his life in his village. Soon after, there happens a theft in that village for which the old man is suspected even by his own family members, which forces him to leave the village and go. During the last stages of life he remembers his past happy life and writes a letter about everything he feels to the members of his village, which he hands over to a young man in that village, who then moves to a tea shop buys a cigarette and smokes; thereafter he calls all the people who know that old man to go in search of him and find him and the story ends with the old man smiling where the story is frozen. During the game, everyone seems to get affected by the Stockholm Syndrome, and become friendly with Aruvi. She even forgives the three men who raped her.

She then surrenders to the police. Since Aruvi and Emily are AIDS patients, they cannot be arrested and have to be isolated Inside the camp, Aruvi's condition continues to deteriorate as she loses a lot of weight and becomes incapable of taking care of herself. One night, she disappears from the camp and moves to a village all alone. After a few days, all acquaintances of Aruvi receive a video from Aruvi on Facebook. The video shows her crying and explaining how she misses everyone and speaks about all the regrets in her life. On seeing the video, Peter gathers everyone and takes them to the village in which Aruvi currently resides (as he told the story to Aruvi for which she told that such a thing will never happen). Aruvi is finally surrounded by everyone she loves towards the end of her lifetime. Everyone she loved gave her a lot of gifts like cakes, pictures and lot. Among such gift is a card from Peter who actually was someone she knew from her youth, who gave Aruvi a greeting card, written " Love you Aruvi, Peter" which she saved. Peter had actually proposed to Aruvi in the way she liked but had forgotten the whole incident (it's shown earlier in the film where a guy proposes to aruvi while her friends mock her as it was too blunt). Then she smiled at him and was happy. And Aruvi asks Subash to spin the bottle as she did during the time of hostage and the bottle stops pointing at Aruvi which means that she can do whatever she wants till the end of her lifetime. The movie ends with Peter capturing the image of Aruvi smiling.

Cast
  • Aditi Balan as Aruvi
  • Anjali Varadhan as Emily aka Jessica
  • Lakshmi Gopalswami as Shobha Parthasarathy, TV show host
  • Pradeep Antony as Peter
  • Mohammad Ali Baig as DGP Mohammad Shakeel Waqaab
  • Kavitha Bharathi
  • Madhankumar as Venkataapuri Sri Badri Sesaadri Deetsidhar
  • Shwetha Shekar as Jessy
  • Arnold Mathew as Karuna, Aruvi's brother
  • Praniti Praveen Kumar as young Aruvi
  • Hemaa as Aruvi's mother
  • Thirunavukkarasu as Aruvi's father
  • Balaji as Subash (Office boy at the channel)
  • Apoorva Natraj as Jeyashree

Production

The film was produced by S. R. Prabhu and S. R. Prakashbabu of Dream Warrior Pictures at a production cost of 2 crore, after Saguni (2012), Kaashmora (2016) and Joker (2016).[3] In an interview, S. R. Prabhu says, "We are so much proud that Aruvi has become one of the best films produced under our banner."[4][5] Also he said, the reason to produce this movie was, after the director narrated the story, he couldn't get the story out of his mind for a week.[6][7]

Cast and crew

To cast the titular role, established actors Anushka Shetty, Nayanthara, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Shruti Haasan were approached by Arun Prabu but was declined due to various reasons.[8] The production team had also been scouting for new Tamil speaking talent on various social networks.[9] Over 600 applicants had applied and auditioned for the lead role, out of which the team chose Aditi Balan.[10][11] Excluding supporting actor Lakshmi Gopalswami, all the cast members of the film were debutantes. Though Shwetha Shekar had appeared in several commercials and short films, this was her first feature-length film.[12] The film's cinematography was handled by Shelly Calist while editing was done by Raymond Derrick Crasta.[13]

Soundtrack
Aruvi
Soundtrack album by
Bindhumalini, Vedanth Bharadwaj
Released10 November 2017 (2017-11-10)
Recorded2017
GenreSoundtrack
Length26:01
LabelDivo
ProducerBindhumalini, Vedanth Bharadwaj

Bindhu Malini and Vedanth Bharadwaj composed the soundtrack and background music,[14] while the lyrics were penned by Kutti Revathi.[15]

Track-List
No.TitleLyricsSinger(s)Length
1."Baby Track (Kukkotti Kunaatti)"Kutti RevathiVedanth Bharadwaj, Praniti, Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy4:44
2."Teen Track (Asaindhadum Mayil)"Oothukkadu Venkata KaviBindhumalini Narayanaswamy3:00
3."Liberty Song (Cement Kaadu)"Kutti Revathi, Arun Prabu PurushothamanBindhumalini Narayanaswamy4:15
4."Party Song (Uchcham Thodum Anbin Kodi)"Kutti RevathiVasu Dixit, Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy3:50
5."Hope (Merku Karaiyil)"Arun Prabu PurushothamanVedanth Bharadwaj, Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy5:00
6."Aruvi Theme (Moods Of Aruvi)" (Instrumental) Bindhumalini Narayanaswamy5:12
Total length:26:01

Release

Aruvi was screened at various film festivals within India and overseas, including the 2016 Shanghai International Film Festival, before being released globally on 15 December 2017. The film was distributed to over sixty screens across the United States, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka.[16] The digital rights were sold to Prime Video. The satellite rights of the film were sold to Star Vijay.[17]Amazon has acquired the digital rights of Aruvi[18]

Critical reception

Aruvi received highly positive views upon release. Critics were particularly appreciative of the performances of the protagonist Aditi Balan and the supporting cast, and the film's direction.The movie is directed in a beautiful manner and has an unexpected plotline.[19] Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion called it "an ambitious, solidly written satire that takes an issue and does very unexpected things with it" in his review.[20]

Awards

2018 Ananda Vikatan Awards

  • Won - Best Production - Dream Warrior Pictures
  • Won - Best Editor - Raymond Derrick Crasta
  • Won - Best Debut Director - Arun Prabu Purushothaman
  • Won - Best Debut Actress - Aditi Balan

2018 Norway Tamil Film Festival Awards

  • Won - Best Production - Dream Warrior Pictures
  • Won - Best Actress - Aditi Balan
  • Won - Best Supporting Actress - Anjali Varadhan
  • Won - Best Editor - Raymond Derrick Crasta

2018 Filmfare Awards South

  • Won - Critics Award for Best Actor South – Aditi Balan
  • Nominated - Best Film - Tamil
  • Nominated - Best Director - Tamil – Arun Prabu Purushothaman
  • Nominated - Best Supporting Actress - Anjali Varadhan

2018 Vijay Awards

  • Won - Best Film
  • Won - Best Debut Actress – Aditi Balan

Home video

The film was made available for video on demand on Prime Video.[21]

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References
  1. "Dream Warrior Pictures SR Prabhu talks about Aruvi's Shanghai trip". Behindwoods.com. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
  2. Aruvi (2016), retrieved 14 August 2017
  3. "IndiaGlitz — Aruvi film by Dream Warrior Pictures to be screened in Shanghai International film festival in China — Tamil Movie News". Indiaglitz.com. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
  4. "Aruvi producer in seventh heaven with international acclaims". Top10cinema.com. 21 June 2016. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
  5. "SR Prabhu is proud of 'Aruvi'". Sify.com. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
  6. "SR Prabhu Found It Challenging To Make Aruvi". Desimartini. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
  7. "Aruvi's script has rawness". www.deccanchronicle.com/. 9 August 2017. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
  8. Anupama Subramanian (19 December 2017). "Three top heroines turned down Aruvi!". Deccan Chronicle.
  9. "Actress hunt for the project". Indiaglitz. 10 July 2014. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
  10. "An advocate is the lead actress of 'Aruvi' - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
  11. "Aruvi to speak about societal politics". Top 10 Cinema. 14 August 2017. Retrieved 14 August 2017.
  12. "Shwetha pins hope on debut". www.deccanchronicle.com/. 18 June 2017. Retrieved 11 August 2017.
  13. Anupama Subramanian (15 December 2017). "Aruvi movie review: An absolute must watch!". Deccan Chronicle.
  14. ""Aruvi" to be screened in China Today". movieclickz.com. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
  15. "Kaashmora Producer's new Tamil film screened in China". tamilplex.net. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
  16. "'Overseas market growing around 10% every year'". The Hindu. 19 December 2017.
  17. "'Aruvi world premiere on Vijay TV'". Times of India. 6 March 2018.
  18. "Amazon Prime Video | Aruvi". Amazon Prime Video India. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  19. "Aruvi Review: Aditi Balan's Acting And Arun Prabhu's Direction Have Together Created Magic, Say Critics". India.com. 16 December 2017.
  20. https://www.filmcompanion.in/aruvi-movie-review/
  21. "Aruvi". PrimeVideo.
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