Test movie review: Cricket is a religion in India, and numerous movies, including biopics, have been made around this game. Debutant director Sashikanth chooses this path and narrates a story in Test about three people – Indian cricketer Arjun (Siddharth), his childhood friend Kumudha (Nayanthara), and her husband Saravanan (R Madhavan). (Also read: Test trailer: Nayanthara, R Madhavan, Siddharth give it all for their dreams, passion in ultimate game of life, choices)
What is Test about?
As the movie unfolds, we find that Arjun is going through a bad patch in his career, thanks to his poor form and likelihood of being dropped from the Indian team. Arjun is adamant that he bows out of cricket not as a loser but having done India proud as he is ‘a soldier’. He wants to be part of the all-important match between India and Pakistan in Chennai and believes it’s a do-or-die situation for his career.
Meanwhile, Kumudha, a teacher, is desperate to have a child and is all set to take the IVF route when Sara, aka Saravanan, an MIT-educated scientist, drops a bomb that he needs ₹50 lakhs as the canteen he reportedly runs is facing license issues. Sara, who is actually working on a hydro-fuel project, is being hounded by financers from whom he borrowed heavily and is desperate for a way out. And through this, we find the police also investigating a match-fixing and betting syndicate ahead of the India-Pakistan match. It’s at this juncture that the paths of the three cross. How do the lives of Arjun, Kumudha and Sara get connected, convoluted and complicated?
The writers of Test – Sashikanth and Suman Kumar – have presented the moral and ethical conflicts that everyone faces through the characters of Arjun, Kumudha and Saravanan. Kumudha and Saravanan have a lot of love for each other but their goals in life are very different – Kumudha’s desire to have a child supersedes all other desires, while Sara’s sole ambition is to get his hydro-fuel project approved by the government. Arjun’s need to be a star cricketer as long as he plays overshadows his role as a father to Adi and husband to former actress Padma (Meera Jasmine). Thus, the three are battling a series of choices in their path to see their dreams come true.
Each of the characters, who are obviously flawed and have shades of grey, has slowly been built up beautifully as the film moves from being a drama to a thriller. The writing in the initial portions of character development and setting up of the scenes must be commended. However, it’s when the film moves into the zone of the test match and match-fixing and goes into the thriller mode that one finds it’s exhausting and starts to drag. And this is what prevents Test from hitting a sixer.
The three actors carry the film
The performances by Madhavan, Siddharth, and Nayanthara are excellent and the three stars carry the film on their shoulders ably. One must point out that the chemistry between Nayanthara and Madhavan – especially in the conflict scenes – stands out, as does the interaction between Siddharth and Meera Jasmine. Nayanthara portrays the struggles and dilemmas that she undergoes as a woman, wife, and friend so perfectly that you can feel her emotions very organically.
Singer Shaktishree Gopalan, the film’s music director, has done a good job, as has cinematographer Viraj Singh. While the editing by TS Suresh is par for the course, some of the scenes could have been edited out as the runtime of two hours and 25 minutes is quite long for a movie that doesn’t have many twists and turns to hold the audience’s attention.
Test has a great premise and performances by Madhavan, Siddharth and Nayanthara, but the story, sadly, doesn’t do justice to them. Having said that, Sashikanth has made a mark with his directorial debut. Test is now streaming on Netflix. Watch it for its excellent performances.
