NOTA: So near and yet so far

In April, we saw the story of a young scion being plucked from academics and given the CM’s chair. A reluctant player at first, he refuses to be a pawn and takes an authoritarian stance to show the political fraternity a thing or two about administration.

Months later, we are presented another scion who’s on a short break from London, where he’s working as a game developer. He’s partying the night to ring in his birthday; he’s summoned at midnight to be told that he will be the CM by dawn. In the background, there’s a comment as to how key decisions are taken at midnight. This scion, Varun (Vijay Deverakonda), is in a trickier situation than Bharat in Bharat Ane Nenu. The politics that plays out here is a different beast. NOTA, a bilingual, marks the entry of Vijay Deverakonda in Tamil. Directed by Anand Shankar, the film references plenty of characters and situations that form the murky, messy, political milieu of Tamil Nadu in recent times.

Nasser plays a yesteryear actor who turned to politics and rose to the position of chief minister. He has skeletons locked up in his personal life. The opposition leader has been trying for decades to dent Nasser’s position. The opposition now has hope in the form of a daughter who has a way with words, can hold attention at public rallies and is waiting for a chance to strike. She’s called Kayal (Sanchana Natarajan is impressive; and it’s easy to guess who her role is modelled after).

Predictably, a turn of events drag Varun deeper into the political cauldron. When he realises he has to get down and play the game, he seeks the counsel of an elderly journalist who runs a political magazine, essayed by Sathyaraj (again, not tough to guess who this part is modelled after).

The drama heightens when a little girl loses her life after a bus is burnt down. Varun has his moment of reckoning and is jolted out of his cocoon. He puts everything else at stake and issues a stern warning through an impromptu press meet. We think this will mark the transformational journey of the young CM. He uses the opposition’s remark of ‘rowdy CM’ to his advantage. The whole idea of ‘rowdy CM’, an obvious take on Vijay Deverakonda’s fans being termed ‘rowdies’ post Arjun Reddy, could have been used cleverly. But it remains a throwaway refrain.

A couple of scenes after that emotional speech, we see him hooked to his video game again. He’s yet to realise what it means to be a leader.

At one point, the hero squirms at the posters put up by his party and shudders that he will be a target of memes. The film too, gradually, ends up like a series of satires and we can match the people and situations in real life politics. Several MLAs are perpetually bent in front of the CM, they have no idea how to tackle an emergency situation like the Chennai floods, and they merrily plunge into the swimming pool when they are herded into a resort before a big day. A hospital is arm twisted into issuing false health bulletins and CCTV footage over an ailing politician.

In some stretches, like how people and government machinery are mobilised during floods, the film strikes a chord. But, for the most part, it’s incoherent.

Vijay Deverakonda, as usual, is charming and convincing. He doesn’t miss a bit and is in sync with what he does; he has also learnt to speak Tamil quite well. But there has to be more to the film. And what exactly was Mehreen’s role? It’s the most underwhelmingly written part.

The entire Panama episode hangs there without making an impact.

Maybe NOTA seemed like a great idea on paper but didn’t translate well on screen. But they’ve left the stage open for part 2.