Day #4 Of Lockdown: Raai Laxmi-Starrer Neeya 2 AKA The Kumbh Mela Of Cringe

After two days of reasonable peace, it's back to hours of anxiety over depleting food and drinking water supplies. Another necessity in short supply are methods to keep the mind entertained and in control. 

The cleaning has been done (even the vacuum cleaner has been vacuumed), dishes washed, clothes folded, garbage sorted and cleared and the windows wiped. In terms of entertainment, matters are stuck in a purgatory-like situation where one is between shows and without a single movie worth being excited about. As a result of this nothingness, the mind wanders to dangerous places that are just a few steps away from some form of masochism. 

It is here that I found my fingers uncontrollably gravitate towards Neeya 2 on SunNXT. Watching the film once was torture enough. Watching it a second time is as much fun as plucking every single hair in your body, one at a time. But strangely, there's some pleasure to be had in this pain. So-bad-it's good is an understatement when referring to this film. Neeya 2, starring Raai Laxmi, Jai, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Kajal Aggarwal and Catherine Tresa, is what you can slot under the so-awful-you're-glad-the-world-is-ending category. 

In a sense, it's a very appropriate film to be watched these days. Because, when we look back at life before Covid-19, we tend to paint the world as a rosy place, made up of beaches and mountains. But Neeya 2 is an important reminder, especially for film critics, that the world isn't going to turn into a paradise the moment things go back to normal.  

Read Vishal Menon's Review Of Neeya 2 

So what really is the deal with this timeless love story that begins with a stalker (the heroine, this time) forcing her 'stalkee' to marry her? He's not much better either, because he isn't looking for the love of his life. He's just looking for any girl whose horoscope matches a particular kind of 'dosham'. What if we were to throw in a shape-shifting seductress who becomes a serpent by night? And what if this woman mistakes our hero to be her long-lost lover from a lifetime ago? This delicious predicament is what makes Neeya 2 the cringe classic it will soon become. 

Read Day 3 of Lockdown: Sidharth Bharathan's Hilarious Malayalam Heist Film Varnyathil Aashanka

A threesome with a python is followed by a vow of celibacy. Two massive flashbacks, three sleazy songs and some silly graphics later, you realise that Neeya 2 is the antidote to any form of pain you're going to be enduring. For that alone, it deserves a place in cinema hissstory.