‘Parris Jeyaraj’ is the second collaboration of director K Johnson with Santhanam, after ‘A1’, released in July 2019. Anaika Soti is playing the female lead while Prudhviraj, Motta Rajendran, Tiger Thangadurai, KPY Vinoth and many others are in supporting roles. Santhosh Narayan is the music director and Arthur A Wilson is the cinematographer. And the movie is produced by K Kumar, under his banner, ‘Lark Studios’.
The titular character, Santhanam is a Gaana singer from North Madras, who loses his first love due to his father, Advocate Prakashraj (Prudhviraj). Jayaraj becomes an alcoholic due to love failure and finds relief in singing Gaana. He meets Dhivya (Anaika Soti) in a College function and falls in love again. Dhivya who is also in the same state, failed in love, gets attracted towards Jayaraj. But they find trouble as both the family members are against this love. At the same time the ex lover of Dhivya returns and apologizes to her. Further what happens to Parris Jayaraj and Dhivya, is the rest of the movie.
Santhanam, repeats his good works he has done in his previous movies, but there is improvement found in his performance this time. In the earlier movies, he was not comfortable with the dance movements, but feels better now, especially in the song inside the bus. Thanks to the efficient choreography of Sandy. Also Santhanam helms the different role of a Gaana singer, throughout the movie, which was made credible mainly because of the good compositions of the music director, Santhosh Narayanan.
Anaika Soti’s performance was neat, except for some lip sync issue. But the director could have taken more pain in her characterization. Prudhvi Raj, as Santhanam’s father, has played his role very well and excellent at few places. His characterization is perfect and his timely dialogues and expressions are remarkable. Motta Rajendran and Tiger Thangadurai make us laugh at times.
Santhosh Narayanan’s composing is the main plus of the movie and some of the songs keep ringing in the ears, even after leaving the hall. But the background score is not as appealing as the songs. The cinematography of Arthur A Wilson is neat and works well with the movie.
The director takes one half of the movie to reach the central conflict and the half seems dragging. But the second half picks up and is entertaining. When Santhanam excels in his style of humor Biographsworld with rhyming words, it is bewildering to see many characters repeat the same style.
Barring the flaws in the writing and the exaggerated performance of some supporting characters, the movie is engaging and entertaining. Definitely it is a treat to Santhanam fans.
