Aruvi


Aruvi is a 2017 Indian Tamil sociopolitical drama film written and directed by Arun Prabu Purushothaman, in his debut film. The film portrays the events that occur in the life of Aruvi, a rebellious young woman who seeks to expose the consumerist and misogynistic nature of modern civilisation, while attempting to find meaning during a period of existential crisis.
Aruvi was produced by Dream Warrior Pictures and was released globally on 15 December 2017. It was praised for the performances of the cast and the film's direction.

Synopsis

A gentle girl born and brought up amidst the ever-growing eco-social-consumeristic environment finds it difficult to fit in the society. She decides to take it hard on the people. What she does is the rest of the story. Aruvi speaks about the social anguish of a girl.

Plot

The film begins with Aruvi and Emily being interrogated by law enforcement officer Shakeel who suspects Aruvi to be part of a terrorist organization. Aruvi's parents and friends are called for interrogation who talk about Aruvi's childhood and adolescence. She is a lovingly raised, innocent girl from a middle-class family. Things take a turn as her life when her family turns against and turns her out of the house accusing her of having brought shame to the family.
Her college friend Jessy takes her in for a while, then moves to a hostel and lives with Emily, who is a transgender woman. They work for a man called Arulmani as tailors in an NGO. One day, she goes to Arulmani crying, asking for a loan of 2 lakh rupees, as her father has suffered a minor cardiac arrest. She then takes off and doesn't return. Occasionally, she undergoes touch therapy with a swamiji who uses hypnosis to heal stress.
Emily approaches the producers of "solvathellam sathyam," a reality show that showcases people's problems on TV. She complains about three men who raped her friend Aruvi. The Assistant Director Peter agrees to telecast their problem and calls the three men for interrogation.
Next morning, shooting starts as the host asks Aruvi to narrate what happened to her. Aruvi then explains that the three men are Jessy's father Joseph, Arulmani and the swamiji. Joseph had sexually abused her when she took shelter in his house. Arulmani had taken advantage of Aruvi's situation when she begged for a loan and the swamiji had hypnotized and raped her. Aruvi then reveals that she has had AIDS for the past 2 years. The infection seems to have entered through an accident, where an open wound was exposed to a carrier of HIV. She meets her friend Emily in an NGO as both of them have AIDS. Aruvi asks the three men to apologize, but Lakshmi turns against Aruvi, accusing her of intentionally infecting those men. Aruvi is appalled and states everything wrong with the society and the unnecessary stereotypes that every common man has to conform to, in order to fit into this consumeristic world.
The director uses all this drama to his advantage as this would improve his show's TRP rating. Aruvi pulls out a gun and shoots the director in the arm. Later, she calms herself and apologizes to everyone, but as she gets up to leave, Arulmani tackles her and hits Emily. This maddens Aruvi and she points the gun at him and takes everyone hostage. Hearing the gun shots, police start surrounding the studio suspecting terrorist activity. Aruvi then plays "spin the bottle." Whoever the bottle points at, should do whatever Aruvi says, else they would be shot. Aruvi then makes everyone do silly things as she watches, in her own way of getting back at the society that forced her into so much pain. As a part of the game, Aruvi asks Peter to propose to her which he does not do properly; so she asks him to narrate a story and he tells a story as follows: An old man happily spends his life in his village. Soon after, there happens a theft in that village for which the old man is suspected even by his own family members, which forces him to leave the village and go. During the last stages of life he remembers his past happy life and writes a letter about everything he feels to the members of his village, which he hands over to a young man in that village, who then moves to a tea shop buys a cigarette and smokes; thereafter he calls all the people who know that old man to go in search of him and find him and the story ends with the old man smiling where the story is frozen. During the game, everyone seems to get affected by the Stockholm Syndrome, and become friendly with Aruvi. She even forgives the three men who raped her.
She then surrenders to the police. Since Aruvi and Emily are AIDS patients, they cannot be arrested and have to be isolated Inside the camp, Aruvi's condition continues to deteriorate as she loses a lot of weight and becomes incapable of taking care of herself. One night, she disappears from the camp and moves to a village all alone. After a few days, all acquaintances of Aruvi receive a video from Aruvi on Facebook. The video shows her crying and explaining how she misses everyone and speaks about all the regrets in her life. On seeing the video, Peter gathers everyone and takes them to the village in which Aruvi currently resides. Aruvi is finally surrounded by everyone she loves towards the end of her lifetime. Everyone she loved gave her a lot of gifts like cakes, pictures and lot. Among such gift is a card from Peter who actually was someone she knew from her youth, who gave Aruvi a greeting card, written " Love you Aruvi, Peter" which she saved. Peter had actually proposed to Aruvi in the way she liked but had forgotten the whole incident. Then she smiled at him and was happy. And Aruvi asks Subash to spin the bottle as she did during the time of hostage and the bottle stops pointing at Aruvi which means that she can do whatever she wants till the end of her lifetime. The movie ends with Peter capturing the image of Aruvi smiling.

Cast

The film was produced by S. R. Prabhu and S. R. Prakashbabu of Dream Warrior Pictures at a production cost of 2 crore, after Saguni, Kaashmora and Joker. In an interview, S. R. Prabhu says, "We are so much proud that Aruvi has become one of the best films produced under our banner." Also he said, the reason to produce this movie was, after the director narrated the story, he couldn't get the story out of his mind for a week.

Cast and crew

To cast the titular role, established actors Anushka Shetty, Nayanthara, Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Shruti Haasan were approached by Arun Prabu but was declined due to various reasons. The production team had also been scouting for new Tamil speaking talent on various social networks. Over 600 applicants had applied and auditioned for the lead role, out of which the team chose Aditi Balan. Excluding supporting actor Lakshmi Gopalswami, all the cast members of the film were debutantes. Though Shwetha Shekar had appeared in several commercials and short films, this was her first feature-length film. The film's cinematography was handled by Shelly Calist while editing was done by Raymond Derrick Crasta.

Soundtrack

Bindhu Malini and Vedanth Bharadwaj composed the soundtrack and background music, while the lyrics were penned by Kutti Revathi.

Release

Aruvi was screened at various film festivals within India and overseas, including the 2016 Shanghai International Film Festival, before being released globally on 15 December 2017. The film was distributed to over sixty screens across the United States, Malaysia, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
The digital rights were sold to Prime Video. The satellite rights of the film were sold to Star Vijay.Amazon has acquired the digital rights of Aruvi

Critical reception

Aruvi received highly positive views upon release. Critics were particularly appreciative of the performances of the protagonist Aditi Balan and the supporting cast, and the film's direction.The movie is directed in a beautiful manner and has an unexpected plotline. Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion called it "an ambitious, solidly written satire that takes an issue and does very unexpected things with it" in his review.

Awards

2018 Ananda Vikatan Awards
2018 Norway Tamil Film Festival Awards
2018 Filmfare Awards South
2018 Vijay Awards
The film was made available for video on demand on Prime Video.