Director: Lakshman

A farmer’s gruesome life, his revolutions, his words and his demands are one of the most crucial stories every citizen needs to hear, react to and reciprocate. Without farmers, we are simply nothing, we cannot survive without them giving their food to us. We must all be extremely grateful every single day that farmers even exist but today the life of a farmer in India is quite a rebellion. The have to fight for every single right of theirs to survive and not end their lives as a result of extreme debt.

Every director must be appreciated for taking up a farmer’s story as their base narrative and finding a larger platform and a public figure to tell their compelling story no one knows about. Bhoomi starring Jayam Ravi has a narrative constructed on these similar lines.

Bhoominathan (JR) is an astronaut who is on a mission to begin a farming project on the planet Mars. However, before he begins this unusual mission, he wishes to visit his village with his mother (Saranya Ponvannan) where he meets his love-interest Shakthi (Niddhi Agerwal).  However, what bothers Bhoomi the most is the struggle the farmers in his village go through. He then decides to make the lives of these farmers better before setting out on his mission. This is when he gets into a brawl with the CEO of a multinational organisation Richard King (Ronit Roy) who places several obstacles for the protagonist.

The motive of the story is genuine and we see the director wanting to tell a story that has been critical for several years. However, what massively fails is the storyline itself which has been the backbone to several other films with the same motive. The story has no different angle apart from the Mars mission and that by itself is a massive let down. There are several other effective angles directors could use to showcase the powerful protests of farmers. The narrative is long, dragging and until the very end we do not get to see anything new and propelling. The attempt is honest and deals with current issues of farmers but not well enough.

Jayam Ravi, who has been choosing versatile scripts is probably the only saving grace of the film. His acting is impeccable and he gives his character a good depth and engagement. Niddhi Agerwal is an average performer as the actor’s love interest and Saranya Ponvannan does justice to the role and screentime provided to her. Ronit Roy is a convincing villain but no different from all the MNC company CEOs we have seen earlier in Tamil films.

Overall, the film gives the audience nothing new to takeaway  from. We do see that it is an honest attempt at a compelling theme but it is not even close to good enough. Monotonous storyline, overly-stretched narrative, unnecessary song placements and the lack of chemistry wreck the performances of the actors too. Although the story of farmers is an apt one to tell on an auspicious day like Pongal, we wish it was atleast a good one to tell after all.

Verdict: You may not feel engaged to the film due to its repetitive content.

Rating: 2.5/5 for the sake of the farmers.

Weightage of women in the film: 2/5