Sruthi Ganapathy Raman
A boyfriend (Harish Kalyan), girlfriend (Ivana) and mother-in-law (Nadhiya) set out on a road trip to ease tensions. This one-liner would get one to expect a dysfunctional family drama. Or a super fresh situational comedy. Ramesh Thamilmani’s LGM (Let’s Get Married) is neither.
Gowtham and Meera’s two-year-long romance comes with a footnote. They are colleagues who begin enjoying each other’s company after a meet-cute at a watering hole. But Meera has an idea. “What if we hang out for two years before we see where this goes?”
We get glimpses of what the film could’ve been in a couple of scenes. Leela is a single mom, whose worries and wonders revolve around her only son Gowtham. But the film doesn’t pause and show us ‘here’s why they are inseparable’.
We realise that Gowtham holds his cards quite close to his chest early on in the film. Perhaps the effect of experiencing loss early in life? We will never know. But as a result, the jokes — when they aren’t filled with deeply unsettling, misogynistic undertones —- fall awfully flat on paper.
The energy is also absurdly low for a film with such a riotous concept. So, when the film takes a head-on plunge into a mind-numbing madcap zone (we’re talking computer-generated tigers, horses drugged with spiked jalebis and an incredibly cringe Godman speaking gibberish), LGM doesn’t have any ounce of energy to even own the kind of arbitrary fluff it throws at us.
Nadhiya is such a calming presence even in the middle of LGM’s chaotic self-destructive streaks. “Do you like being alone,” Ivana asks her at one point. She shakes her head and admits that it’s the most difficult thing in the world, looking deep into the sea with a smile.