Prince movie review: A partly effective spoof or a juvenile joke?

Language: Tamil

Cast: Sivakarthikeyan, Maria Ryaboshapka, Sathyaraj

Director: Anudeep KV

Star rating: 2/5

After Sivakarthikeyan’s performance in Doctor, fans are left with high expectations. So when Prince was touted by the filmmakers to be a no-holds-barred comedy, many expected magic. This genre, in a way, is Sivakarthikeyan’s playing field. Yet, something went horribly wrong with Prince because the laughs were just not enough. From the very beginning, I had this sinking feeling with the dialogues as it did not land in many occasions. The film itself is a romantic comedy about a young Tamil man falling in love with a British girl settled in India. His father is a communist who pushes his children to marry out of caste, but he is also a nationalist who has a special place in his heart just to hate on the newer generations of Britishers for the sins of their ancestors.

So, Prince attempts to dig deeper by drawing in the ill feelings that certain sections of Indians have towards a country and the country persons that enslaved them. Can something as sensitive and serious as reparation for enslavement and racism really be used as fodder for something that is shallow from the very outset? It is only much later that the film sets itself up as a spoof. Especially the confrontation between Anbu and his father about his love for an English girl hints at the direction that the film wants to take. When Jessica says, “We gave you the railways, education…” and ends it by saying, “We even gave you freedom,” it strikes a nerve. This is the stand that white supremacists and people with saviour complex have repeatedly said when asked about reparation for the actions of their ancestors. A similar belief is also held by a huge section of upper caste community in India. They believe that they liberated the Dalit and Adivasi community from being ‘uncouth’, ‘uncivilized’, and ‘uncultured’. So they try to erase the oppression. However, the potential of this scene is visible only fleetingly. The comic expression on Sathyaraj’s face is the only evidence of this potential.

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This flaw in the screenplay sabotages the film to a great extent. So, the jokes that were promised in the film is juvenile and the payoff for any comedic set-up is too late too little. Take, for instance, the moment when the white girlfriend wants to buy bottle gourd! The fact that Anbu, the hero of this tale doesn’t know that Sorakkai is bottle gourd is the beginning of a joke that is too long, with a short payoff. We understand that the male ego doesn’t let this young man accept that he doesn’t know something that his crush does. He continues to pretend as if he knows what she is talking about. What really is hilarious is that Anbu finds a vegetable seller who wants to continue a facade with his own wife as well. He apparently impressed her with his English while courting her. The amount of world-building that goes into this sketch, even if half of it had been put into building Jessica as a person, or Anbu’s family, the film would have been better of for it.

Instead, it goes round and round in stressing how Anbu has betrayed his village by failing in love with an English girl. It is hilarious how Anbu’s father (Sathyaraj) was accepting of their relationship when he had believed that she was French. A quick note on Indian history and the European forces that occupied the nation at different times, La Compagnie française des Indes Orientales (French East India Company) set up an outpost in Pondicherry — now Puducherry. It is at this point that I began to see the film as a spoof. One that is a commentary on everything that the society today is most obsessed with. From K-drama, and reparation to hypernationalism, the film broaches it all, but ineffectively because of the earlier stated flaw in screenplay.

The huge holes in the screenplay is fixed momentarily with juvenile jokes. Prince would have done much better had it stuck by its conviction to make the dark jokes about society stick. Instead, the flimsy nature of commentary within the film makes the attempt nothing but laughable. Anbu and Jessica’s love story is not something to root for because all we see of their relationship is song and dance moments. It is so shallow that his own friends end up believing that he is dating her to settle down abroad. Another self-deprecating joke here, I am sure.

This is probably one of the few moments that I did truly enjoy because it feels as if the filmmaker made a self-aware comment regarding how much of Anbu’s intention we were allowed to see. These are thoughts, that one would really begin to form at the end of the film, because at the beginning, all of it seems disconnected and distorted. From a simple tale of a social science teacher falling in love with an English teacher, the film tries to build many layers. However, not one of them is portrayed with clarity. Even the dad jokes in the film come off as juvenile, but not juvenile enough to be enjoyed. It occupies this weird space in the joke world where the lines just travel above your head and flats flat on its face.

So Prince is a mixed bag. For those who enjoy the grand comic set-up with momentary payoff, for those who have the patience to relate with such elaborate set up, it is an enjoyable entertainer. Otherwise, it is a missed opportunity.

Prince is playing in cinemas

Priyanka Sundar is a film journalist who covers films and series of different languages with special focus on identity and gender politics.

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