All characters in Brother will create an impact, says director Rajesh

CHENNAI: Makamishi has become the monsoon anthem with youngsters playing it and shaking a leg to it in the floods and is the vibe song at gyms too. This has set the perfect tone for Brother's release, which is exactly a couple of weeks away from now. Director of the film Rajesh is looking forward to having a blast this Deepavali. "Not only for Brother's release. There is Sivakarthikeyan's Amaran which is simultaneously releasing with our film. He is another close friend I have in the industry. I wish all the films that are released for the festival become a success. When a festival day has three to four releases, it is a healthy trend for a film industry to grow further," he begins.

Jayam Ravi has reiterated that Rajesh's films are more emotional from within while humour takes the top layer. The filmmaker seconds it and says, "Brother is an emotional family film at its core, and the writing by default has humour in it. The film's strength lies completely in Ravi's performance. His character of Karthik in the movie has an emotional undertone to it and he has delivered a top-notch performance. Then there is VTV Ganesh, who is a wannabe Sid Sriram. His portions will be a laugh riot."

Rajesh has worked with Jiiva, Arya, Karthi, and Sivakarthikeyan-- all of Jayam Ravi's friends and contemporaries. According to Rajesh, Ravi and him were to collaborate for a project 14 years ago. "We met at the success party of Boss Engira Baskaran and had expressed our willingness to collaborate. Later, I started working on OK OK. Then Ravi was working on busy schedules. We were frequently in touch before things fell in place for Brother," says the filmmaker.

Brother also has Bhumika Chawla, Natty Subramaniam, Priyanka Mohan, Saranya Ponvannan and Seetha in important roles. Rajesh assures that all these characters will have prominence with the storyline intact. "That was the toughest process in writing Brother. I haven't taken their presence in the film for granted. They are all huge names in the industry and they cannot be just touch-and-go characters. I have struck a fine balance. Getting the right cast is half the job done. They all will create an impact in their screen time," he adds.

Rajesh and composer Harris Jayaraj have come together for a film after OK OK. The songs are already a hit among the listeners. "Ravi and I wanted Harris as the composer. We wanted the album to be as entertaining as the film and he has done that perfectly. The background music too is bang on target," he remarks.

His titular leads from his previous films-- Siva, Baskaran, Azhaguraja and Saravanan from OK OK among others may look carefree but are not careless. "Karthik in Brother too is layered. The story completely revolves around his perceptions and will be seen from his point of view. The stark difference that Brother will have from my previous films is that the protagonist will be completely script-driven. Here Jayam Ravi's character drives the script. Brother is a character-driven story and he has done a lot of justice to it," Rajesh strongly assures.

Recently, he put out a video clarifying musician Paal Dabba's absence from the film's audio launch event. However, the singer still received a backlash from various sections of social media. "I wanted to let people know that what Paal Dabba did was unintentional. Audio launch is a huge platform for him to share the stage with a composer like Harris. However, he didn't show up and that's how he is. I wanted the public and the netizens to take it in a lighter sense as his career is involved," states Rajesh.