There’s a forgotten brand of humour that works really well for the most part in Vishnu Edavan’s Hi. Reminding one of the loud, but likeable comedies from the '90s made by directors like Ezhil and Sundar C, the intentional old-schoolness of Hi has a way of surprising you with its silliness. It doesn’t even attempt to play it safe or try the logical approach. If there’s a joke to be milked, the film will do anything, even if means hitting someone on the head with a pole. It’s desperate and immatur, but oftentimes also feels oddly sincere.
The plot itself is right out of the aforementioned earlier era of comedies. Both Mayil (Kavin) and Devyani (Nayanthara) are forced to leave their respective towns for absolutely opposite reasons. If Mayil wants to save face after a major rejection, that too from a relative, Devyani chooses to run away to reject a person she has no interest in. Their respective small-town families are just as loud as the both of them too, even though they take a lot longer to come into the picture. As confusions form a major part of such comedies, the film stumbles into a web of lies that uses everything from a girlfriend in Pakistan to a false pregnancy to keep things running. In a funny little set piece in a bar, Kavin explains the absurdity of this entanglement and even the film knows that it cannot get the actor to narrate the same dialogue again without letting go of details.
But it’s when the laughs dry up that we feel the hollowness of the film’s plot. Emotional arcs, that needed much better writing in the earlier portions, jump at you out of nowhere when you’ve grown to like these characters. Take the example of where the film leaves you during the interval; there’s a shocking surprise and you also think of it briefly as the completion of Mayil’s arc. From a film that begins with a manchild who is unable to defend his opinions against his overbearing parents, we see him mature finally, even if it’s a ridiculous way.
But two scenes in, and you see the film go back to the same digs at Mayil’s indecisiveness as a lot more people walk in his life. Character inconsistencies aside, the film also struggles to do enough with the confusion it sets itself up for. The midpoint feels so ripe with comedic possibilities that the jokes should have been easy to write from then on.
And yet what follows are skits that work individually, without it being able to fit into the bigger picture. By the time the genre shifts abruptly, following a long emotional monologue, it forgets to make its way back to what made the film likeable.
Just like a film from the 90s, Hi believes it must force a message about motherhood and the glory of a big family to make us care even more. The charm goes missing somewhere along the way and the weepy ending pulls you right out the factors that made so much of the film likeable. Kavin and Nayathara are great when it’s all fun and games, but they’re not able to navigate the film through the more serious portions. It’s an easy watch with a few big laughs but also instantly forgettable.