GoodNight Review (2023)

GoodNight has for the most part, an absolutely naturalistic first half which is aided by the wonderful performances by Manikandan, Meetha Raghunath, Ramesh Thilak, and Raichal Rebecca as Mohan, Anu, Ramesh and Maha respectively.

Take the scene when Mohan and Anu meet for the first time. It is an absolute delight as it unfolds so damn naturally and nothing in that scene feels artificial or fake in anyway. But ironically, the scene in the 2nd half when Mohan and Anu re-join, the scene takes unfortunately pretty artificially and staged-ly.

The film which follows Mohan, a man who has a snoring problem, and his love story and the problems he faces in it.

The film has, for the most part, a pretty tight focus on its tone and mood, and the problem is that when it falters, it falters a bit hard. Take the montage of Mohan and Anu’s post marriage life. We see them being and enjoying together, but the film also intercuts scenes of Anu being disturbed by Mohan’s snoring. It suddenly goes serious and shows Anu’s suffering due to it. Like this, another scene is just prior to when Mohan and Anu get back together. We are seeing Anu and suddenly the film cuts to Mohan and an issue of his younger sister Raghavi. The issue itself is underdeveloped and feels force fitted to make both Mohan and Anu rejoin.

But the thing is that prior to all these, we see Mohan’s problems and we see the embarrassment he faces, and how Anu brings happiness in his life. But we seldom see much of Anu’s side, except for a traumatic flashback told by her to Mohan. Much of Anu’s characterisation given to us though is told to us visually by framing her alone, and framing her with people at the necessary points. Like how Mohan is surrounded constantly by people, Anu is always alone and we see why she likes him and all.

But as said, Anu’s character writing could have been a bit better, and consequently, Mohan’s marriage with Anu itself could have been handled in a better way, akin to Love Today, where the love story of the lead’s sister and her fiancé/husband turns to be better love story than the leads.

Here too, Mohan’s sister and Ramesh, played brilliantly by, Rachail Rebecca and Ramesh Thilak, who face constant ridicule due to them not having a baby. Their own romance is so natural and heart-warming, and we wish to have seen them more. But maybe you could argue that their own romance wouldn’t have worked so well, if we saw them more so I think that’s alright.

Both Manikandan and Meetha Raghunathan though, share wonderful chemistry and even the issues in the writing of their romance is overcome by their acting and chemistry.

The main conflict, actually seems to end by some time before the interval so it takes some time to get to the conflict. And even then the way the conflict is handled is a bit weary. Anu herself doesn’t have any issue with Mohan’s issue and we understand that the guilt he feels for disturbing her. But in the end the issue seems to resolve itself. Even the various methods Mohan tries to overcome his snoring is played slightly for fun which I thought diluted the seriousness of the issue.

But the film also redeems itself with its climax, which eventhough at a micro level has its own issues, at a macro level, works humorously really well acting as a call back to a previous sequence. At the micro level, the thing is that it is inherently too cinematic, and that Anu’s fears which she had earlier relayed seems to be resolved in a humorous and light hearted way thus destroying its importance.

But then when coming out of the theatre, I came out with a smile and at the end of the we all go for that to the theatres and in that aspect, GoodNight gives you a great sweet dream.