Mutthu (Anishma Anilkumar) is smiling awkwardly as she is decked up as a bride, but it will be soon revealed that she is planning to elope with her lover. Modha Rathri , the new Tamil film by debutant director Raja Karuppasamy, is about a forced marriage. As the night progresses, she finds out that the plan was not meant for her in the first place and that, she, at the end of the day, must accept her husband- a respectful and compassionate man named Maruthu ( Rishikanth ).
Told with a lot of wit and humour, it is an otherwise sordid tale which has a woman at the centre of the story- with little or no agency.
Mutthu in many ways is reminiscent of Divya in Mouna Ragam. Revathy played Divya as a woman hiding secrets of her own, one who reluctantly agrees to the arranged marriage with Chandrakumar (Mohan). Only after their marriage, she has the courage to reveal that she had planned to elope with her lover Manohar (Karthik), but that resulted in tragedy as he was killed in a police encounter. Divya is moody, impulsive, angry and obstinate. She refuses to please, her face a black canvas for all the rage to settle in.
The Mani Ratnam film, released exactly 40 years ago, was his third Tamil film which also revolved around the institution of marriage and a woman’s agency around that world.
Mutthu, in bridal costume for half of Modha Rathri’s runtime, is also seething with rage and humiliation. She finds herself trapped with a man who she barely knows, and in one scene, breaks out in an impromptu dance when pushed too far. It is staged as a humorous scene but this is no joke, Mutthu cannot bear to pretend that this is how her life is going to look like, where every decision that has led up to this point in her having no say about her choice of a partner. Mutthu also has her impulses but as the film progresses, she is presented with no other option but to accept how the man who she loved in the first place, is not the right match for her. She shrinks into silence for the later half of Modha Rathri, even as the background grows louder and crazier with her family finding out about her plan to elope.
