It’s been a year of horror movies with at least three films from the genre each month. Most follow a predictable formula. Someone (usually, a girl) dies due to some variation of a mishappening. She then wanders about as a spirit to take revenge on the powers that brought it about. The revenge motif is near universal, barring a few exceptions like Mysskin’s Pisaasu.
Given the formulaic renditions of the genre, a good screenplay is imperative if any level of enjoyable viewership is the goal. Without it, the story falls flat on its belly. Unfortunately, Strawberry happens to be headed in precisely that direction.
*****
Lyricist turned actor and director Pa Vijhay’s Strawberry revolves around an eight year old child Yuvina (Anu), who dies in an accident while travelling for school activities. Her death, caused by the negligence of the school administration, takes a devastating toll on her parents, played by Samuthirakani and Devayani. Yuvina proceeds to stroll around as a revenge seeking spirit trying to punish the chairman of her school. The chairman in turn takes every opportunity to undermine Yuvina’s image, to avoid culpability for this heinous crime.
The tension in the film revolves around the question of whether Yuvina’s ghost can succeed in her mission. How she executes her revenge against the chairman and the administrator forms the crux of the plot.
*****
Children dying due to the negligence of school authorities aren’t unheard of. Pa Vijhay’s message about careless school administration is laudable. But then there’s the amateurish direction, jarringly obvious in nearly every painful frame. Nothing works: from the out of sync lip sync, to the unnecessary animations, to the fake skies hovering over the entire film, just to depict the arrival of ghosts.
Sprinkled seemingly at random are some aerial shots of Kathipara Junction and other locations of Chennai. The VFX and CG shots have little to offer in terms of either finesse or logic. Worse, the airport shots might even have been taken without permission, from the low quality resolution of the images.
*****
A bad plot can be salvaged by a stellar character or two. Here, barring Samuthirakani, Devayani and Thambi Ramaiah, the cast had little to no impact. Santhanam’s influence is visible in Yuniva’s character who addresses Samuthirakani as ‘bro’ throughout the film. Actor Joe Malloori portrays a negative character and the movie opens with him holding ‘Baba’ symbol. Actress Avani Modi’s performance is limited by the fact that her character is mainly there to look glamorous.
Recommended
What are we left with? Ghosts in the mirror, coloured frames, Robo Shankar as the ardent Thala fan and cute Yuvina.
*****
If only Pa Vijhay had focused on the social message instead of the horror attempts at horror. Thambi Ramaiah’s dialogue, “School nadatha vendiya Government wine shop nadathudhu, Wine shop nadatha vendiya aalunga school nadatharanga” at least has some kind of credibility.
The bottomline. Pa Vijhay would be better off writing lyrics. We would be better off spending our money on real strawberries.
*****
The Strawberry Review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have an advertising relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.