Review: Vishwanath & Sons

Vishwanath & Sons gives Suriya a role that mostly just asks him to be relaxed and likeable, and he's genuinely good at it. As a wealthy industrialist and sharpshooter navigating his mother's wish to see him married and an unexpected connection with a much younger woman, he plays the part without straining for either gravitas or comedy, and the film's best stretch, its first half, rides entirely on that ease. Radhika Sarathkumar matches him scene for scene as his mother, and their relationship carries more genuine warmth than the film's marketing suggested.

The trouble starts after interval. A sensitive premise, a 42-year-old man realising his feelings for the much younger biological mother of his child, needed careful handling in its back half, and director Venky Atluri instead reaches for old-fashioned melodrama and a stretch of subplots involving Raveena Tandon's character that pull focus without adding much. The film knows its foundation is solid; it just doesn't trust it enough to stay simple, and the runtime sags as a result.

The trouble starts after interval.

Three stars for a film that's a genuine pleasure to watch for its first half and its performances, let down by a second half that mistakes length and melodrama for depth. Suriya and Mamitha Baiju alone make this worth catching, even if the film around them loses its nerve.