2 Stars (out of 4)
The Netflix Original Tamil movie Test has an identity problem. Trim 45 minutes, and you’ve got a taut thriller film. Add 90 minutes, and you get a dramatic series about complex characters. As it is, the movie is poorly paced and bloated with material that doesn’t square with the characters’ actions.
At the center of the story is Arjun (Siddharth), a professional cricketer whose career is coming to an end. He’s not ready for that, but he’s in a slump. The national team tries to force him into retirement just before a big match in Chennai against Pakistan, but Arjun leverages his stardom to buy time. Still, he knows this is likely his last hurrah.
Arjun doesn’t know who he is without cricket, but he’s got a life waiting for him in retirement. He and his wife Padma (Meera Jasmine) have an elementary-school-aged son Adi (Lirish Rahav) who’s desperate for his father’s attention.
When Adi struggles at school, it’s not his parents who comfort him but his teacher, Kumudha (Nayanthara). She’s a little too involved in her students’ lives, compensating for her struggle to have a baby of her own. She’s also a childhood friend of Arjun’s, though he ignores her.
While Kumudha focuses on her fertility issues, her husband Saravanan (R Madhavan) tries to find an investor for his hydrogen fuel cell invention. He’s been lying to Kumudha about having a job running a canteen, and now he’s in debt to loan sharks. If he could just secure a contract with the government, he believes all his problems would be solved — he can finally be the next Steve Jobs.
The three main characters have problems they’re trying to address individually, but it takes a very long time before the main conflict at the heart of the narrative is revealed. The inciting incident doesn’t happen until the movie is halfway over, at which point the tone shifts from low-key relationship drama into thriller territory.
Despite the long buildup, there’s little to justify why things happen the way they do. The marketing for Test bills it as a story about choices, but the choices the characters make don’t always follow from what we’ve been shown about them. I suppose the question producer-turned director S. Sashikanth is asking is what one would do when a golden opportunity presents itself. Based on what he’s shown of the characters, the answer is: not what the characters do.
For a movie with such an all-star cast, the acting is kind of flat. R Madhavan gets to chew some scenery, but it’s a long time before he does. Siddharth plays Arjun as so self-focused that he shuts out the audience as much as the people around him. Other than one tear-filled sequence, Nayanthara’s Kumudha is pretty one-note.
The standout performer is Meera Jasmine, who makes her return to Tamil cinema after more than a decade. She plays Padma as her family’s pillar of strength, the one holding everything and everyone together. It’s not a flashy performance, but it feels right for the character. Also, kudos to little Lirish Rahav, who plays Adi as a bit of a brat, but for understandable reasons.
Had Test been structured as a series, there would have been more time to show gradual character evolution — and to better integrate a subplot about the police following the loan sharks. On the flip side, shortening the film’s runtime would have added urgency to the story and made the stakes clearer earlier. As it is, Test is watchable but forgettable.
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