‘Lubber Pandhu also has strong emotions beyond cricket’

CHENNAI: The trailer of Lubber Pandhu was released a few days ago and was an instant hit among movie buffs as well as die-hard cricket fans. It struck a chord immediately because they were able to connect with it well. “Lubber Pandhu will offer something beyond what the audience witnessed in the trailer. With cricket tournament as the core theme of the film, it is easy to woo cricket lovers into the theatres. We also kept the family audience in mind and the film is a pure family entertainer,” begins director Tamizharasan Pachamuthu.

Harish, a passionate cricket follower was immediately lured into the world even as he read the script. “I am sure you know how closely I follow the game. So, when Tamizh told me the theme as well as the character sketch of Anbu, I liked the sensibilities around it. More than cricket, I felt that I haven’t played a rural boy character before. Coming to cricket, most of my games were played with a tennis ball or a cricket ball. But Lubber Pandhu aka rubber ball and a tournament around it was completely new to me. I didn’t think twice to explore,” he says.

The surprise package from the entire trailer is Sanjana Krishnamoorthy. After playing an Anglo-Indian girl named Velonie in the web series Vadhandhi: The Fable of Velonie, she has now forayed into the feature film space with Lubber Pandhu. “I loved the contrasts between my characters in Vadhandhi and this movie. I would say this character was closely connected to my real-life persona but in a rural, deglam avatar. I felt that this would be a perfect launch for me in the theatrical space. I like watching cricket and the world that Tamizh has penned is something new to me, which means that I would have a lot to learn from the film. The entire experience was new. The way the characters interact with one another, the village, and the houses around it—overall I had a lot of takeaways,” reminisces the actor.

Tamizharasan says that the story was inspired by characters who he grew up with in his village. “There is always an idol we look up to in our neighbourhood, when it comes to cricket. This story is about that and how ego makes its way into their lives. Also, this is a film that is not going to be telecast on a sports channel. So, the women in Lubber Pandhu have a strong role to play. While cricket is one part of it, how the women aren’t game for a game of cricket when their husbands go out to play is also a major part of the narrative,” adds the filmmaker.

Harish Kalyan is being lauded by movie buffs for his choice of scripts. Be it Parking or Lubber Pandhu, he doesn’t shy away from exploring. “It’s not about refusing a script. I do a film when I find it appealing and then I wait for it to release and in the interim, I listen to many scripts. Yes, I could have done more films but I prefer quality over quantity. Parking and Lubber Pandhu came to me in that pursuit,” he says as the team heads for a photoshoot in our campus.