Young Arya happens to carry his father’s (played by Arya himself) diary when his granny suggests him go to his father’s native place – Karaikudi – to redeem his father’s house from his creditors. Shriya comes to India from London on a different agenda. As flight schedules get canceled in the Bangalore Airport, they board a train together in the guise of a couple.
When the ‘Ticket Examiner’ finds out they are not man and wife, the two have to embark on a journey from ‘Chikmagalur’ to ‘Madurai’ and ‘Karaikudi’ for Shriya’s and Arya’s respectively. In between, a subplot of the father Arya, falling in love with a village school teacher (played by Preetha Rao), back in 1985, is read on a diary by both Arya and Shriya intermittently and the flashback happens to be poetic in parts. We find ourselves immediately comparing the past and the present. We are led to feel that the past is better than the present.
Preetha Rao puts on a pleasing performance recreating the 80’s ‘coy yet beautiful heroines’. In stark contrast, Shriya’s performance is a disappointment – a synthetic clay-modeled Genelia. The actress displays all her ineptness by blatantly copying her fellow actress. Her costumes and antics fully depicting Genelia – in long shots you might well be under the illusion that it is Genelia.
Father Arya is more matured while young Arya’s costumes set trends. Even as father Arya, his age old problem of defying the time period through his looks continues. If in Madrasapattinam, it was his designer stubble; if in Boss Engira Baskaran, it was his urban costumes for a small town guy; here it was his fashionable ‘Ray-Ban’ sunglasses he sports in the 1985 back story, again as a small town guy.
Ironically, the devious travelogue does not keep the audience engaged whereas the flashback does. After leading to a few twists that separate the couple, our heart longs for their reunion. The flashback is abruptly stopped in between to continue with the 2010 travelogue which is made easy by the editing. The editing aids the flit between the past and the present.
Finally, when the flashback draws to an end, the whole movie is almost set for a climax and a few more twists lead us to there. Also, there is another twist that awaits us on who Arya’s and Shriya’s parents are. Santhanam is once again given a huge welcome although some of his dialogues sure make the audience cringe. He is an immediate delight to any audience as he releases the pressure in the enclosed atmosphere.
The travelogue sequences, some of them, are forgivably inspired by a popular German or European film which also inspired ‘Pudhukottaiyilirundhu Saravanan’. Arya and Shriya lying on the rooftop of a bus against the original European film’s boat’, the ambience in the interiors of a bus resembling the original film’s boat and the calculation of distance between two shores of a lake which Arya decides to jump across with 92.3 kilometers speed on a Mercedes Benz car. All these sequences are part of the European film.
The film traverses across various points deviously to find a central plot and even if it is the father Arya’s reunion with Preetha Rao, the travelogue part finds prominence. The younger Arya and Shriya’s portions are enjoyable in parts. One thing that we would marvel at the end of the day is the RB Gurudev’s cinematography, which covers the vast expanses of Chikmagalur with an aesthetic touch, along with the colorful costumes of Arya and Shriya. The differentiation of the past and the present with a sepia-like tone also comes handy in alleviating the confusion, as the lead actor is the same in the two versions.
Colonial cousin’s, Hariharan and Leslie Lewis’s music is vastly inspired from the other two stalwarts AR Rahman and Harris Jayaraj and even the similarity in lyrics was slightly intriguing – ‘Mazhaiyai thaanae nesithoam’ which features in ‘Ullam Kaetkumae’, which incidentally is also an Arya starrer. However, the songs are murky too with lesser comprehension of the tune itself let alone the lyrics. The costumes of Arya and Shriya are a revelation – kind of trend setters.
The greenery and the jocose moments along the travel part are all borrowed without much originality. In the end, Chikku bukku satisfies with the resolution, the climax and the light hearted moments in the beginning, but it is the misleading central plot which makes it slightly less enjoyable.
Positives
- Arya (Father)
- Preetha Rao
- Cinematography
- Entertainment
- Santhanam
- Shriya (Very Inept)
- Groping for the Central Plot
- Travelogue Scenes
- Slow Progression of Story
- Dialogues
Chikku Bukku is worth its flashback as Arya looks matured enough to play the role while Preetha Rao is lovably coy and plays her part well. But the main leitmotiv of train, as the title goes, is far-fetched and few and far between. Shriya puts up an irritating act which is one of the major let downs for the film where you may also wonder if she can act out even an easy role entrusted upon her.
Chikku Bukku is about its playful entertainment and is a Saturday evening movie. Part entertaining and part interesting, the outcome is an uneven and inconsistently devious travelogue.
