“Only you can fix me,” Karthik tells Jessie on the opposite finish of the decision, as the remainder of us smile when the strains of Aaromale play within the background.
Ten years after they broke up in Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa, the return of one among Tamil cinema’s most referenced fictional in Gautham Menon’s lockdown brief Karthik Dial Seytha Yenn has been met with a gamut of feelings. “Why does he still have her number?” “He talks like that to a married woman with kids?” And the preferred of all of them: “Jessie baby-zoned Karthik! Best meme content ever.”
Many viewers appear nearly enraged that the closure (or lack of it) they acquired from the film, has been disturbed, even tainted, with the picture of Karthik nonetheless fawning over Jessie — regardless of her being married — and the truth that she lets him.
Except that it shouldn’t.
Before we get to the why, let’s first set up that a quarantine rewatch of Gautham Menon’s trendy traditional from 2010 —that holds up extremely properly even at this time — brings into focus the advanced characterisation of Jessie greater than ever, in addition to Trisha’s fascinating interpretation of it.
Think of all of the Manic Pixie Dream Girls seen in films over time that formed your thought of the proper movie heroine; from the archetypal ‘loosu penne’ to the traditional woman-subsequent-door who provides up her goals to be a sidekick to the hero’s mission. Jessie, in each method, is the very antithesis to the MPDG; she doesn’t want anybody, she doesn’t even need anybody — however when you persist, she would possibly simply tolerate you.
We all know a Jessie in our lives. She’s the woman you first fell for with out even realising it, the one who woke up your teenage spirit, she who rewrote each thought and calculation you had about infatuation, love, lust, no matter chances are you’ll.
For most of us, she’s additionally the one which in the end acquired away.
Now, think about for a second, that she didn’t go away in spite of everything. Somehow, inexplicably, unbelievably, towards each reality you knew and regulation of nature you trusted, she chooses you and it’s the best second of your life.
She’s the one you compose songs and poems about, write film scripts on and cross continents for. Jessie’s your muse, your finest buddy and the best lover you’ll ever have: and that’s terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.
And then someday, identical to that, it’s over. You don’t perceive why or how it occurred — a part of you should still assume it’s a dream that went on properly after you awakened on the suitable facet of the mattress — however Jessie is gone, and all the pieces is worse now.
Six months. Six months is all it took for Karthik to have his life turned the wrong way up by the cataclysmic phenomenon that Jessie was; an occasion that can take him a lifetime to by no means get better from.
“I don’t know myself, I don’t know what I want… I like this pain. There are so many girls out there Karthik, why did you love me?” she asks him, of their last confrontation earlier than he realises what he ought to have identified: he was at all times only one mistake away from getting dumped. After all, with the magic, comes the insanity.
In among the finest scenes, Jessie, working out of causes to make him depart, tells him it wasn’t meant to be, as she doesn’t like going to the cinema in any respect. “It’s so dark and loud, and the crowds… whereas, you want to be a filmmaker!”
It’s at this level that Karthik, going from confused and annoyed, to pure rage, asks her incredulously, “Are you serious? You don’t like films? What *&%!** logic is that?”
There’s a lot meta-genius packed into these two traces, and absolutely, can be empathised finest when you’re from Chennai the place being a film-lover, getting FDFS tickets, date nights at Sathyam and fan wars with associates are all a part of the very cloth of rising up within the metropolis. Karthik, who represents each post-2000s engineer’s dream of changing into a film director, can not fairly imagine that this woman — as good as she could be — doesn’t like the films, and even worse, is utilizing it as an excuse (one among many) to interrupt up with him.
It’s inconceivable to outline the Jessie-Karthik relationship fully (on the latest 10th anniversary of VTV, this implausible article explains why Aaromale probably might), however we select as an alternative to have a look at the title monitor — Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa — that performs out proper earlier than Karthik leaves on a piece journey to Goa, which precedes the turning level of their story.
The track, set to a haunting tune by Rahman, is essentially the most underrated monitor in your complete album, introduced magically to life by Thamarai’s lyrics and Gautham Menon’s good visible depiction of their relationship.
Karthik, who won’t get to see Jessie for the subsequent 45 days, desires to get intimate. They are on their own in a beautiful seashore home collectively, earlier than he bids farewell to her. Anything might occur — and so they have been relationship for six months — however Jessie ensures that their degree of physicality doesn’t get previous just a few kisses whereas they hug one another. When Karthik tells her these essentially the most cherished moments in his life, she replies, “Maybe because it’s the last time we are together.”
Did she already know?
Uyire neeyum naanum,
Pirinthadhu puvi eerpu maiyathil thaaney
Iru dhuruvam serum antha orr-idam,
Angge thaan naam sernthomey
Inimel naanum neeyum pirivathillai, anbeyy
(You and me have been separated on the centre of gravity
But we have been united on the place the place the 2 poles meet
We won’t ever half once more, my love)
Nothing can break up on the middle of gravity nor can something meet the place the poles unite, implying that they have been doomed from the start.
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In some ways, Samantha’s character of Nithya from Neethaane En Ponvasantham (that got here simply two years after VTV) is tailored from Jessie — however what if Jessie have been much less indecisive, what if she was prepared to provide in, what if she actually, actually wished that joyful ending? Nithya is what everybody wished Jessie to be; extra fantasy, much less actuality.
But going again to Karthik Dial.. we see that Jessie isn’t actually that Jessie anymore in her day-to-day life. She nonetheless possesses that flamboyance and the drop-lifeless attractive appears to be like of yore, however there’s one thing lacking… that quixotic spark.
However, a minute into the decision, it’s reignited once more, which is once we realise it: Jessie doesn’t simply tolerate Karthik, she wants him — simply not in the way in which he wants her.
Karthik can nonetheless make Jessie really feel particular; the unique yin to her yang, an adrenaline to her tempestuous persona that has mellowed over time. In these fleeting moments that happen by way of e-mail, cellphone calls or letters, she probably lets herself go a bit, to the uncommon intoxication of being wooed, being beloved actually, madly, deeply for the primary time another time — thronged by the occasional guilt of leaving him a decade in the past.
Reminiscent of a scene in VTV (the quasi-imaginary one which performs out in Central Park, however is later revealed to have by no means occurred), Jessie expresses her concern that he hasn’t moved on from her — she’s curious, anxious even to know if there’s another person in his life — however deep down, does she really need him to?
“Nee ennamo onnu panra, Jessie,” Karthik sighs, thanking her in direction of the top of the decision — within the information that she’s a muse for creating one thing larger than both of them — and never a straightforward vice to withstand.
None of that is to distract from the truth that Karthik is being problematic, misplaced within the echoes of his forbidden romance, fully oblivious to Jessie’s current and future: a person-baby caught in time.
But Jessie’s additionally conscious of their lives away from one another, a lot the truth is, that she phrases the love she has for him at this time, akin to that she has for her youngsters. You anticipate Karthik to resent this, however he has no selection however to simply accept it. He’ll take what he will get. And at all times will.
Eventually, Karthik Dial Seytha Yenn is a captivating, if not totally needed footnote within the lives of those two troubled, advanced characters that all of us can relate on some degree to. The Karthiks of the world will at all times fall for the Jessies; in spite of everything, he loves films a lot, he isn’t passing up on the possibility for his life to be one.
And what concerning the Jessies? She will proceed to confound, exasperate, encourage, make or break anybody who steps in her shade… however it’s not a lot that she desires to or must.
It’s as a result of she will.
