Tourist Family Movie Review: A Moving Drama Of Unrealistic But Aspirational Optimism
Tourist Family, directed by debutant Abishan Jeevinth, is a moving and entertaining story about an illegal immigrant family from Sri Lanka struggling to find a home in Chennai.
Tourist FamilyU
Tourist Family is the kind of film that relies immensely on creating beautiful moments. There isn’t much in terms of the story in such dramas. With Tourist Family, the trailer pretty much revealed all of it, which is about a family of illegal immigrants from Sri Lanka trying to find a home in Chennai, while the police are on their tail to pin a small bomb blast on them. As a story, Tourist Family has a lot of potential for a misstep given the sensitivity of the subject of Sri Lankan civil conflicts. However, debutant Abishan Jeevinth carefully avoids the mines and lands on brilliant emotional notes. The volatility of the film’s subject is never felt as its tone and nature are too affable. We tend to forget the logistics, logic, and the plausibility of the events as the film and its characters are too heartwarming. Tourist Family appeals to the heart more than the brain, and it wins you over.
When Dharmadas (Sasi Kumar), his wife Vasanthi (Simran), elder son Nithusan (Mithun), and Mulli (Kamalesh) set foot on Rameshwaram beach, they immediately get nabbed by a head constable played by Ramesh Thilak. On their way to the police station, a touching conversation unfolds between the head constable and Mulli, and by the end of it, the family is let go. Now, when narrated, the scene feels absurd, but the success of Abishan Jeevinth and Tourist Family lies in how they convince you with the dialogues and the performances. Mulli asks the constable to take care of his dog in his absence and reveals a heartrending backstory about the pet. But moments later, things take a surprising turn, leaving you in splits. This only points to the self-awareness of the filmmaker, who brings in a sense of sarcasm to places that are mostly deemed sensitive. A father mocking the son upon realising his girlfriend left him in 15 days is another example of Abishan’s sense of humour. Such nuance distinguishes Tourist Family from all the other emotional dramas. The film keeps finding humour in unlikely places. Das gets elevated to the status of a god in a scene, and the next moment, the film undercuts the whole elevation with humour. It is like the director letting you know that: “I too know it is a bit much. So before you mock me, I will do it myself in a far better way."
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Kamalesh as Mulli is a revelation. The young actor steals the show every single time he is on the screen. The humour gets incredible because his comic energy is incongruous with the seriousness of the setting. Sasi Kumar, Simran, and almost everyone who gets to show up on the screen do their job effectively, winning our attention. Again, a lot of credit goes to the casting, as it seems like they cherry-picked faces like Bagavathi Perumal and Ramesh Thilak, who don’t have to do much to win us over.
The other success of Tourist Family is despite its ability to parody itself, it manages to protect its emotional core. It creates lovable characters like an introverted neighbour played by Kumaravel and his wife. MS Bhaskar as Das’s boss is another gratifying character. Almost all such characters end up winning your hearts because of the gaze the director has towards life itself. One can complain about the immense optimism in the film being unrealistic and sugary. The reality is too indifferent to such a family. However, Tourist Family is not about plausibilities. Altruists like Das are unrealistic, but so were Jesus and Gandhi.
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