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| Samantha Ruth Prabhu (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons) |
In
Tamil cinema, film stars used to suffer a bizarre disease that defied explanation
: whenever Mani Ratnam announced a new film, all the actors and actresses used
get all excited and worked up about picking up a role in it.
This
also used to happen each time Rajnikanth announced a film, but at least that
hype was usually justified because soon after the film’s box office run, the heroines
invariably become the highest paid ones and the villains too are flooded with offers.
There were only a few who didn’t capitalize on the Rajni magic.
But
Mani Ratnam’s case was a different one. The fuss about starring in a Mani film didn’t
always translate into post-release offers. But the hype had worsened after he began foraying
into Bollywood.
Well,
when he initially announced ‘Kadal’, he had picked Samantha as the heroine
opposite Goutham Karthik. Rumours say that the heroine was replaced because she
looked older than Goutham. Of course, the official reason was very different.
Some said that Samantha also had earned the dubious distinction of being the
first heroine to be replaced in a Mani Ratnam film.
Frankly,
I’m not such a big fan of Samantha. She looked easy on the eye in ‘Dookudu’,
but in the entire film, not a trace of emotion whizzed by her face. But you don’t
expect a Saroja Devi or Soukar Janaki kind of heavy duty performance in such
films.
Anyway,
with all its subtle but steady hype, the film made its way to the theatres.
Goutham looked good. Arvind Swamy looked good and acted well. Arjun was the surprise
package. In all Mani Ratnam films, the male actors usually look very good. So,
this film was no exception either. Cinematography was excellent too. If you
could look the story in isolation, it was actually a good one.
But,
the heroine was a major disappointment. Music (songs as well as BGM) was
intolerable. And, when the positive attributes, namely excellent male actors,
good cinematography and interesting story, were brought in, they simply failed
to gel with each other.
Had
Samantha starred in it, her career would have suffered a traumatic blow and she
would have probably been branded as South Indian cinema’s first ‘onscreen cougar’
– in her first big hit, she was seen romancing someone younger than her; in
this film she would have been seen romancing someone who looked much younger
than her…
The
actress is probably thanking her stars now!
