Nooru Saami Movie Review: A stellar Swasika anchors this sensitive social drama with a few rough edges

Noru Sami‘s protagonist, Selvi (A wonderful Swasika), is caught between her loneliness and the need to be a “model mother”. Selvi doesn’t really have a village to raise her two children after the demise of her husband. Director Sasi wonderfully uses a ceiling fan as a motif for Selvi’s dead husband. Considering how we aren’t really told how he passed away, did he hang himself to death on that fan? And does Selvi see it as the last spot where her husband was alive? Sasi doesn’t dwell on the despair of it all, and just shows it as her companion and asks you to move on. She has two additional crutches in the form of her sons, Bhaskar (Ajay Dhishan) and Vivek (Shakthi). They are her lifeline, but just like every other son, these boys don’t exactly need their mother when they become men. Once again, Sasi doesn’t dwell on this aspect of parenting for long and moves past it, as Noru Sami is quite pragmatic despite the heavy melodrama in the title. Probably why the film doesn’t really spend time cementing the equation between Selvi and her sons. Why should a film waste scenes in telling that a mother loves her sons? You just know it, right?

Unfortunately, this smartness isn’t really seen in a few other parts of the film that get a bit testing. The heightened tension in the opening scenes doesn’t really give the same high when it is resolved. There are a few tonal inconsistencies, sometimes, within the same scene. For example, in a conversation featuring Selvi, her sons, and her brother (Karunaas), what starts as a comedy becomes a serious scene without any breathing room, bogged down by coercive, manipulative music that leaves you exhausted trying to keep up with the emotional rollercoaster. Again, the sentiment isn’t the issue, because when you walk into a Sasi film, you know sensitivity and sentimentality are a given. But the way the scenes traverse between these emotions doesn’t allow you to reflect on the character’s machinations.

Nevertheless, Noru Sami is firmly Selvi’s story, and the film is in steady territory when it paints a stark picture of her dreaded reality. Apart from a random conversation with her sons’ primary school teacher (Aruldoss), we don’t see her lament even once to anyone. Does she have friends? Does she have anyone who will just sit next to her to listen to what happens in a day? As they say, loneliness is a pandemic, and Swasika wonderfully encapsulates the crushing pain of being alone. Sasi builds these scenes beautifully as he shows how society finds its own way to keep a woman caged, giving it the illusion of it being her own choice. While it is understandable that some scenes have to be pronounced, Noru Sami actually revels in its subtlety. But Sasi’s decision to be doubly sure that every emotion is driven home feels like overkill. Say, for instance, the scene where Selvi broaches the idea of her remarriage to her college-going elder son, Bhaskar. Her plea, his response, the venom in his words, and the pain in her eyes were already on point. But the film goes on to break into a pathos number, and through the song, we also see Bhaskar go through a gamut of emotions. Now, this plays out all wrong for several reasons, including a cameo by Lijomol Jose that doesn’t quite make sense. Of course, she delivers an impactful sermon later, but the character feels like a stretch. Similarly, Ajay improves as the film progresses, but he doesn’t effectively carry the emotional heft his performance demands. Shakthi’s role gets overshadowed by his mother and brother, but he does well in his character turn and in the romantic portions.