‘Vishwanath & Sons’ review: Suriya and Mamitha Baiju make Venky Atluri’s film worth the ride

Age-gap relationships have always made for uncomfortable conversations. Add a nearly 20-year difference between two people, and the reactions become even sharper. Some see no problem as long as both people are consenting adults; others cannot get past the imbalance that comes with two people being at very different stages of their lives.

Venky Atluri's 'Vishwanath & Sons' takes that discomfort and turns it into the heart of an otherwise breezy entertainer. Starring Suriya and Mamitha Baiju, the film asks a fairly simple question: can a 40-something man and a 22-year-old woman fall in love? More importantly, should they?

Suriya plays Sanjay Vishwanath, a wealthy businessman in his 40s who has no interest in marriage. He lives with his mother and seems to have built a life where everything can be bought, and every problem can be fixed. Sanjay has his reasons for staying away from marriage, but his carefully arranged world is thrown off balance when a baby enters his life. Soon after comes Maddy Jay, played by Mamitha, and the two arrivals change the rhythm of Sanjay's home and, eventually, his life.

Suriya is in comfortable territory here, slipping easily into Sanjay's shoes. He is particularly good when the character finds himself dealing with situations he clearly isn't prepared for.
But it is Mamitha who brings much of the film's energy. Maddy could easily have been reduced to a familiar bubbly-young-woman character whose only job is to disrupt the hero's life. Her comic timing works, her dialogue delivery is effortless and she has a way of making even the film's more ordinary scenes feel lively. Much of the first half works because of the way she and Suriya play off each other.

Their scenes together are where Atluri's idea works best. Sanjay and Maddy belong to different generations, and the film lets that show in the way they speak, react and see the world. Their contrasting personalities lead to moments that are amusing and occasionally awkward, without the film trying too hard to explain or smooth over the difference between them.

That is also where 'Vishwanath & Sons' makes its smartest choice. Atluri does not spend the film trying to convince the audience that a 20-year age gap is unquestionably romantic. Neither does he turn the relationship into a moral lecture. Instead, he lets the question sit there. You are allowed to watch Sanjay and Maddy grow closer and still wonder whether this is something that should become love.

The film is at its best when it trusts those moments. There is little of the exaggerated romantic posturing one might expect from such a premise. The conversations flow naturally, and the chemistry between the leads comes from their interactions rather than the film repeatedly announcing that they are meant for each other.

Radhika Sarathkumar is another major strength as Sanjay's mother. Her character brings warmth and humour to the film, and her scenes with Suriya are among its better emotional moments. Their relationship also gives the story some of its most convincing beats. One particular scene involving Sanjay's breakdown lands especially well, largely because the film has taken the time to establish the bond between the two.

The first half, in fact, is where 'Vishwanath & Sons' is most enjoyable. The arrival of the baby and Maddy in Sanjay's otherwise orderly life creates enough chaos and humour to keep things moving. The film is happy to spend time on their everyday interactions, and those moments give the characters room to develop. Then comes the second half, where the film becomes less sure of itself.

The story begins moving away from what made it interesting in the first place and takes on more conventional turns. There are inconsistencies, and the film occasionally seems too eager to remind us just how perfect Sanjay is. He is handsome, well-built, incredibly rich, owns private jets, lives in a mansion and can apparently buy companies at will. He loves and cares for his mother and is repeatedly shown as an exceptionally good human being.

At some point, the film begins selling Sanjay a little too hard. Of course someone might fall for a man like him, the film seems to say. And that is precisely the problem. By loading him with so many desirable qualities, the film occasionally makes the central relationship easier to accept than it needs to be. The question of whether Maddy would fall for Sanjay risks becoming less complicated when Sanjay is presented as a man who appears to have been designed to be impossible not to fall for.

Atluri is also clearly not interested in realism here. Sanjay's world is one of enormous houses, private jets and luxury at every turn. Every frame seems aware that this is a Suriya film with the scale of a mainstream entertainer. That is not necessarily a problem. 'Vishwanath & Sons' does not want to be a grounded study of class, age or relationships. It wants to entertain first, and for much of its runtime, it succeeds.

GV Prakash's music adds to the film's mood in places, though the soundtrack does not quite leave a lasting impression. What ultimately works in 'Vishwanath & Sons' is that Atluri does not ruin the ending by forcing the story into the most obvious conclusion. There are two directions the film could have predictably taken, and both seem apparent as the story approaches its climax. Yet the director chooses not to neatly fall into either. That decision matters because the film's central question was never one with an easy answer. 'Vishwanath & Sons' may be uneven, glossy and occasionally too determined to make its hero look like the perfect man, but it knows when to stop making the audience feel for its characters and when to let them decide what they feel about them.