Featuring Nayanthara, ‘O2’ could have been a great survival drama. But it is not roughly.
Featuring Nayanthara, ‘O2’ could have been a great survival drama. But it is not roughly.
A journey is memorable not only because of the destination but also because of the journey. For example, bus trips are special because there are many different types of people on their way to the destination.
Parvati (Nayanthara) and her son, Veera (YouTube star Rithvik), who has trouble breathing, embark on one such journey. So are a politician who lost an election, a man whose love is rejected by the girl’s family, and a cop involved in a dubious deal.
It’s a six-hour journey – from Coimbatore to Kochi – but the group, along with a few other characters, get caught in a landslide. Will they be able to survive?
good thing about O2 is that it doesn’t waste a lot of time setting things up. Leaving aside an emotional mother-son song that contributes to showcasing their camaraderie (which is fantastic), it jumps straight to base: How do a group of strangers deal with a life-threatening situation?
O2
Throw: Nayanthara, Rithvik
the director: gk viknesho
Story: A group of passengers on a bus ride gets caught in a landslide
on paper, O2 Turns out to be a survival drama with interesting elements. But, to work such a subject required far more tension. After its initial installation, O2 likes a lot squid game, which also shows how individuals react to certain situations thrown at them and how group dynamics work. But here, the characters trapped inside the bus are so many—they each have so many problems—that we stop caring about them, unlike a Helen (2019) which focuses on the sufferings of an individual.
The mother-son relationship is really lovely but it won’t help us to invest the whole time. The love angle about a couple is weak, as is the politician who is always frustrated with the situation he is in.
Director GK Viknesh manages to throw some interesting sequences in the second half, especially the sequences in which some of the group get angry. The cinematography (Thamis Azagan) and composer Vishal Chandrasekhar try to stir things up, but the ending feels too convenient. like a hollywood movie oxygen (2021), O2 It also brings to light how important breathing is, and how we take oxygen lightly, but all that isn’t enough to make it an entertaining survival drama.
O2 is currently on Disney+ Hotstar. streaming on