Meera (1992) dir. P.C. Sreeram
When we first meet Meera (Aishwarya), she is heavily pregnant and has returned to her college to give birth. She addresses the camera and asks if we want to hear her story.
Meera was once a pretty young university student from a wealthy family, who met Jeeva (Vikram) when he accidentally (?) spilled paint all over her new car. She immediately takes a virulent dislike to him, but he’s smitten. Jeeva begins a campaign of aggressive wooing which is not winning Meera over at all, and won’t stop sexually harassing her. This gets him thrown out of school.
That leads into the first musical number of the movie, which echoes a certain Pink Floyd song. The setback does not deter Jeeva, who again attempts to roughly woo his target. Meera throws him off and heads for the police station to report his harassment. But on her way, the story suddenly takes a turn. Crossing a bridge in the bad part of town, Meera happens to witness two people getting murdered. She runs to the station, but when the cops are ready to take her statement, the commanding officer (Sarath Kumar) turns out to be the killer.
Meera barely escapes, but is forced on the run as she obviously doesn’t know which police officers are in on the crime and which are just patsies. Jeeva finds out Meera is trying to flee the city when he rescues her maid from some thugs, and heads after her. This leads into a series of misadventures for the pair as they flee for their lives and fall in love.
This Tamil-language romantic comedy/thriller was Vikram’s first big role. Thankfully, he got better material quickly.
Good stuff: The stars are pretty, and there are some nice musical numbers. If you’re willing to wait a long time, the last bit of the movie has cool death scenes.
Less good: The tonal shifts are jarring and poorly coordinated. Neither main character is appealing. Meera is an obnoxious rich girl who flaunts her wealth and social status as she continually puts Jeeva down at the beginning. She’s also kind of screechy, but that’s just my personal taste. Jeeva is the kind of fellow who does not take no for an answer from a woman and just keeps pushing and pushing and pushing and does not hesitate to initiate physical contact. That he basically wears Meera down by saving her life repeatedly until she finally realizes how awesome he is comes across as obnoxious.
Since the movie has to fill a lot of time, the leadup to the main plotline takes nearly half an hour of tedious and uncomfortable conversation. And then the roaring rampage of revenge at the end is crammed into about the last ten minutes.
Content note: Murder, some very gory, including the death of a dog and a child. Jeeva sexually harasses and stalks Meera. Tight wet clothing for Meera, shirtless men. Police are either corrupt or useless.
Overall, not a recommended movie, but might be of mild interest to Bollywood fans.
