Vijay Sethupathi and Nithya Menen's electrifying performances hold Thalaivan Thalaivii together, notes Arjun Menon.
Pandiraj has a flavour to his cinema.
The director deals in broad-stroke storytelling set in villages surrounding family men, who are put through the wringer of familial and social responsibility to deliver justice.
After helming masala fare like Kadaikutty Singam and Etharkkum Thunindhavan, Pandiraj shifts his attention to a husband-wife story in Thalaivan Thalaivii.
Akashaveeran (Vijay Sethupathi) is introduced in a cheeky sequence that involves him in a face-off with his wife's family.
Thalaivan Thalaivii is not told linearly, and you get a snapshot of a curiously colourful marriage, where the line between love and melodrama is blurred.
We get a sense of the explosiveness of the couple (including wife Perarasi, played by Nithya Menen), who are in a tumultuous marriage.
Akashaveeran has unfair expectations of his wife and her brother (a man with a shady past), whose presence in their lives sets in motion some of the misunderstandings.
Pandiraj seems to be following suit with directors like Shankar, who cited the 'dwindling attention span among younger audiences as a crutch for TikTok' inspired fast-paced, relentlessly paced dramaturgy, or lack thereof.
Thalaivan Thalaivii sets up its self-contained world of two families at its core, trying to coexist.
The film is held together by the on-screen chemistry between Vijay Sethupathi and Nithya Menen, who conjure the snappy banter style equivalent of a slapstick comedy.
There is a Howards Hawks-like screwball energy to their conversations, where dialogues are not spoken but rather thrown back and forth with great comic effect.
The repartee between the lead actors keep the film afloat even when the plot sidetracks.
Thalaivan Thalaivii has moments of quiet connection and rebellious mutual co-dependence between the husband and wife, who are crossing each other at the downward slope of a spiraling marriage.
The director's dramatic sensibilities take front seat in the latter half, where the film nosedives into episodes featuring suicide attempts, abuse allegations, infidelity fights, and many contrivances that feel right out of Pandiraj's earlier work.
Santhosh Narayanan's score retains the local texture of the film's setting.
Pandiraj can't help but end up mining regressive story beats and insinuations regarding the nature of rural life and how interconnectedness and toxicity are expected to play out.
There is a clear attempt to diversify formally, and the structural rigor of the film represents a huge step up from his previous outing, Etharkkum Thunindhavan.
However, the film fails to measure up to the insanely synced performance styles of its lead actors, who are having the time of their lives chewing the scenery and detaching themselves from the rigidity imposed by their other recent film choices.
If not for anything else, this routine festival outing is made memorable by the electrifying lead performances that hold it all together.
Thalaivan Thalaivii Review Rediff Rating: 
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