Soorarai Pottru (2020): The best that any OTT platform has produced this year.

"If Einstein had been born a century earlier, he might have made no momentous contributions to his field; a Mozart who came of age in the early 20th century and trained on 12-tone rows might not have done so either."

- Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Myth of Meritocracy: who really gets what they deserve (2018)

When Nedumaaran, played by the unbelievably young Suriya, begs passengers in the airport for money to afford the business class seat to visit his dying father, one jarring thought popped in my mind. In 2020, this wouldn't have been an issue. He had 5 minutes to get the remaining 6,000 rupees. His Army pals could've easily transferred him the cash through the Indian version of "PayNow/PayLah" and he would've been on his way back to his hometown. Following this, I was sent into a spiral of thoughts regarding the article on Meritocracy (above) I read just last week. It is indeed true that if Nedumaaran were to face a similar situation today, he would not have been deeply affected by the rejections he faced at the airport and may never have decided to make flights accessible for the common man.

It is in the same article that Appiah quoted Michael Young's (renowned practical sociologist) idea of what a new ruling class would look like in a Meritocratic dystopia. IQ + Effort = Merit. Democracy would then give way to the rule by the cleverest. He also noted that the emerging cohort of mercantile meritocrats can be insufferably smug because they believe they have morality on their side for achieving success on their own merit and not as a beneficiary of nepotism. This is precisely what we see in Jaz Airlines owner Paresh Goswami (played by Paresh Rawal). He goes out of his way to stop Nedumaaran from achieving his dream of making flight travel accessible to the poor. He even proclaims that he should be the "only rags to riches story" in the industry. As Appiah rightfully posited, "What should have been mechanisms of mobility had become fortresses of privilege."

Soorarai Pottru could've been any rags to riches story but Suriya's amazing performance accompanied by Sudha Kongara & Shalini Usha Nair's impeccable screenplay made it a film I so wish I watched in the cinemas. After a string of unlucky runs in the cinema, Suriya is back to WOW you - with his immaculate physique, acting and just by being freaking awesome all round. I also realised Aparna Balamurali (who plays Sundari - Nedumaaran's wife) is 25 and Suriya is 45. This is one of the rare instances that the age gap didn't bother me at all. Their chemistry wasn't forced and definitely wasn't painful to watch like most large age gap hero-heroines. I mean...this man doesn't physically age, I think?

Aparna Balamurali & Suriya in Soorarai Pottru

Suriya is always known to be very vocal about his support for his wife's career and for the rights of women. This paired with his performance as Nedumaaran would make your heart turn into a mushball. When we see Sundari meet Nedumaaran for the first time, we want this two to be endgame. Two fiercely ambitious individuals. In their own words, two "lunatics in the village". The way Maara asks Sundari for the loan to register his company is undoubtedly one of my most favourite scenes. How often do we see heroes being so raw and vulnerable? Also, who better than Suriya to play this role? Oh to have a better half who understands your "crazy" ambitions 😍 That's the dream. I can't deny the role of GV Prakash's compositions that added fuel to the already burning chemistry between the two leads.

The film was, not so surprisingly, fraught with tear-jerkers. I was in tears in the second half of the film. It is maybe because we know IQ + Effort =/= Merit. It is maybe because we know that, like Michael Young mentioned, meritocracy, confuses two different concerns - efficiency & question of human worth. Nedumaaran did all that was required to start an airlines company, he abided by all the rules and yet he was unable to achieve his goal because a group of people thought he wasn't worthy enough to own an airlines company and that the poor didn't deserve to ride on planes.

Soorarai Pottru is a story of a crazily ambitious man AND woman and more importantly a reflection of a society where people who have the merit of a particular kind, harden into a new social class without room in it for others. This is, by far, one of the best Indian films to have had a direct to OTT release! Let's get back on track :')

"Here's to the ones who dream

Foolish as they may seem

Here's to the hearts that ache

Here's to the mess we make"

- La La Land (2016)

Watch Soorarai Pottru (2020) on Amazon Prime now.