‘Once More’ movie review: Arjun Das and Aditi Shankar shine in a fresh romance that loses steam

Guy sees girl. Guy follows girl. Guy stalks girl. Eventually, girl falls for him.

This is a template Tamil cinema has used several times over the last few years; some heroes have actually made entire careers doing just this.

It is due to this overall situation that Once More’s first sequence grabs your attention. Raghu (Arjun Das) is seated at the Velachery bus stop — his bike has broken down, and he has to find some other means of transport to get home. With cab drivers unwilling to take up the ride, Raghu is wondering what to do.

Enter a bright red car, with his college junior, Anjali (Aditi Shankar), offering him a lift.

She seems chirpy. He seems brooding. Within a few minutes, she asks him out and tells him she’s in love. What follows is an entire section dedicated to girl-chasing-guy – a trope unusual for Tamil cinema.

But why is Raghu always looking like he has lost something? Why is Anjali so besotted with him?

We’re finding answers to those very questions in the next 135 minutes or so in director Vignesh Srikanth’s exploration of a tumultuous relationship. As Anjali, Aditi is very likeable, though the hero likens her character to “the girl from Santhosh Subramaniam”. With her expressions, she valiantly treads the line between genuine cuteness and dramatic playfulness. A brooding Arjun Das provides the right edge for a romance that takes time to nourish, much like the plant he was gifted by his girl.

There are many romances in Once More. Like the one featuring Anjali’s office friend — a boy in love with another boy. “I don’t understand your sexuality, but I understand your pain,” Raghu tells the boy who has hurt himself and is in hospital. It’s rather heartening to see Tamil cinema chronicling these kinds of relationships as well; not only does it push cinematic boundaries, it also opens the minds of audiences to be accepting of all kinds of love. I await a time when this sort of love track — of a mainstream male hero falling in love with a boy — is showcased sensitively on the big screen.

The first half of Once More has several such neat, quiet moments. It’s in these exchanges that the film breathes, much like the sequences we are used to seeing in Mani Ratnam films. It’s not just humans but also places that play a role in the proceedings, like the church the protagonist frequents whenever he feels low. “It’s my favourite place in Madras,” he tells Anjali when he ushers her inside the place for the first time. Everyone has a space like that, and the sequence of a heartbroken man bringing his guardian angel of sorts here is a scene that is both joyous and beautiful at the same time.

Arjun Das and Aditi Shankar in ‘Once More’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Unfortunately, the same adjectives cannot be used for most of the second half, when we get into the reasoning behind Raghu’s sadness. We get to know Indra (Sona Olickal), whom he met at a college cultural event. This flashback, unfortunately, is not written with the same depth as the present-day portions, and hence leaves us with the feeling of gobbling up a meal. Once More loses serious footing here.

With lengthy periods devoted to talkie portions, what we’re left to dig into is music composer Hesham Abdul Wahab’s exciting soundtrack, which includes a variety of genres to choose from. Check out this particular line from the melodious ‘Edhira Pudhira’ track — “Buddha-nin arayil. Attarin manama” (In Buddha’s room, we smell perfume) — written specifically to denote how the female protagonist has sneaked into her man’s room to catch a glimpse of him. It’s a stirring piece of lyric in a breezy song.

It’s puzzling that writer-director Vignesh, who seems to have a strong grasp of writing mature modern relationships, leaves a few loose ends: like, why would a rather trivial detail derail a relationship? Why would a person go all-out for another despite the latter having considerable self-doubts?

Despite some of these sluggish moments, especially in the second half, this Arjun Das-starrer deserves a bit of a look-in, just for the way it handles a mature romance. Once More polama?

Once More is currently running in theatres