Now and then, life tends to find ways to break those big walls you build around your heart, the mental enclosures trauma puts you in, and the walls you build around your beliefs. In Venky Atluri’s charming family entertainer, Vishwanath & Sons (VAS), Suriya plays a middle-aged man who lives within a self-built cocoon, even when everything around him is as lavish and grand as in a materialistic man’s wet dream. Among the things Sanjay Vishwanath (Suriya), a business tycoon and an Olympic-medallist shooter, inherits from his father, Vijay Vishwanath (Rajiv Menon), are a business empire, a mantra to fight till the end, and deep insecurity about marital relationships. With this complicated father-son relationship at its core, director Venky Atluri’s family drama ends up as a well-written, larger-than-life entertainer that not only feels wholesome, but also bats for the right progressive registers.
The way the rousing introduction of Suriya’s Sanjay is written tells you this isn’t going to be your routine hero vehicle. About to compete in the finals of the Paris Olympics 2024, Sanjay’s locker is vandalised by unknown men; his pistol is shattered, and his jersey is torn. Sanjay remembers what his late father taught him — when something gets broken, try your best to fix it, and opt for a new one only if repairing is not possible. Sanjay fixes his pistol and, using the very same spray can used to vandalise his locker, he writes ‘India’ on his jersey and steps out for the game. On the surface, this is a ‘mass’ moment for a star’s entry, but on a deeper level, this tells you who Sanjay is, how much his father meant to him, and therefore, why he has become who he is after what happened with his father.
Vishwanath and Sons (Tamil)
Director: Venky Atluri
Cast: Suriya, Mamitha Baiju, Radhika Sarathkumar, Raveena Tandon
Runtime: 161 minutes
Storyline: A wealthy, emotionally guarded Olympic shooter who has sworn off marriage finds his carefully ordered life upended when the surrogate mother of his ailing son enters his family and falls in love with him
Throughout the next 161 minutes, we see Sanjay do just what his father taught him to — he puts his heart into finding solutions to every issue that arises. Very attached to his mother, Nirmala Devi (a fantastic Radhika Sarathkumar), Sanjay, a bachelor in his forties, finally listens to her plea for an heir to the family: he fathers a child through surrogacy. When the child, named Abhay, ends up in a hospital with a bone marrow disorder, he tracks down the surrogate mother, Maddy (Mamitha Baiju), and brings her home since her bone marrow can help cure the child. Now, what if Maddy, after spending many months with Sanjay and his family, falls in love with him? After all, this directly collides with his long-standing resolve not to get married. Will he confront his deep insecurities? Even if that is possible, will he agree to marry someone who is 20 years younger than him? This forms the rest of the story of VAS.
Sanjay gets to do all the above and more because…well, he can. Wealth is Sanjay’s superpower, and you begin to wonder if he might end up buying the whole city to suit his needs. And the film too doesn’t hide it; every pixel screams money, and every shot revels in lavishness. The storytelling, therefore, feels too convenient at times. But Venky hardly attempts to hide this. VAS is essentially a Bruce Wayne story; in fact, I couldn’t stop chuckling when Sanjay almost buys a hotel to teach the hotel owner’s rich brat son a lesson. Yet, despite this convenience, the story of Vishwanath & Sons is so grounded in genuine emotions that you willingly live this dreamlike life — and gladly, all this opulence ensures most other real-world problems do not obstruct Venky’s narrative goals.
A still from ‘Vishwanath and Sons’.
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This also means Sanjay inadvertently spoils Maddy with his money. She calls him ‘Santa Claus’, making it more convenient for Maddy to see him as a potential partner. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mean to say that materialistic wealth is all Maddy wants, but the text doesn’t hide that she is aware of how easily she would attain most of her life’s goals with Sanjay by her side. In an earlier scene, she spells out her goals for every decade of her life to someone who could realise them all in a second. But that isn’t why Maddy loves Sanjay, and that’s where VAS comes into its own.
Emotional beats accrue meaning seamlessly. Abhay and Nirmala (who Maddy calls Mrs Nirmala) become the family Maddy has been searching for her whole life, and Mamitha Baiju gives so much life to her character through her superb performance. Her very splashing entrance gives the film an instant boost of energy, and she easily charms her way into our hearts. Of course, some generic ideas — like when Sanjay becomes a saviour to Maddy’s damsel in distress or a random legal battle that goes nowhere — could have been avoided in a film that largely manages to package the right kind of commercial elements.
Vishwanath & Sons has some of the most progressive ideas that a big star vehicle could accommodate. Suriya deserves huge credit for consistently being this green-flag star, paving a progressive path for the next-generation heroes. Those who have seen his Etharkkum Thunindhavan would remember that shocking twist in the second half in which the lead couple’s dignity is threatened; it’s an idea only a hero secure in his masculinity would have accepted. In VAS, which obviously bats for the freedom to choose surrogacy, Sanjay travels to different countries on a particular date each month to satisfy his carnal desires with strangers he meets on dating apps. What’s more baffling is how casually this whole idea is treated; it even becomes a running gag involving his mother! Talk about a daring filmmaker and a secure star.
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Venky manages to direct Suriya’s easy charm and charismatic presence into something aspirational. At every major juncture in the story, Suriya is convincing as an affectionate man, but with an invisible shield around him. Watch him in the many conversations he has with Maddy in his car. Or when his sense of security breaks in a scene on his mother’s bed in the second half. Also notice what GV Prakash Kumar’s music does to the scene. Prakash’s music breathes fresh life into VAS, and the film’s dance choreography also catches your eye. Meanwhile, Radhika Sarathkumar reminds us who the veteran of the cast is; in a single shot where Maddy reveals her feelings for Sanjay, Radhika expresses so many different emotions in such a short span.
All that said, this is a Venky Atluri film at the end of the day, and the director displays tremendous narrative control. The ease with which every scene flows into the next feels so satisfying. As a writer, Venky shows a lot of maturity, especially in how he ends the film. On the surface, it might feel like a cop-out, but having clearly witnessed where Sanjay and Maddy stand, any other ending might have felt contrived. It also satisfyingly shows what a healthy relationship that respects boundaries would feel like. And such thoughtful writing in a mainstream hero vehicle can be rare. This is good pure-genre masala cinema.
Vishwanath and Sons is currently running in theatres
Published – August 14, 2026 04:20 pm IST
