When director Shankar chooses to produce films, he ensures that there is some strong point in the stories. Probably that is how movies like 23va Raju Pulakesi, Premisthe took shape. Same is the case with <>Vaishali, which has a strong underlying social, though the entire feel of the film has a subtle texture of horror to it.

What’s it about : Vaishali (Sindhu Menon) is found murdered, drowned in a bathroom tub, in her plush apartment building. Vaishali’s case is handed to a disciplined cop, Vasu (Pradeep / Aadi). As Vasu investigates, it seems, that she had committed suicide, apparently guilty of her extra marital affairs with another guy. However, Vasu, who was also Vaishali’s ex-boyfriend, before her marriage, knows that Vaishali cannot be such kind of a woman, and wonders if hers was a murder. He also finds that neither Vaishali’s husband, who was out of town that day, nor her neighbors seem to have anything to do with it. In a twist of events, few neighbors in the apartment buildings too begin to get murdered, one by one, in extremely strange circumstances. With animosity from Vaishali’s father, help from her sister Divya (Saranya Mohan), and with his own sense of guilt haunting him, Vasu gets too involved in the case. As a result he begins to have premonition on the next murders, and tries his level best to stop few. However, he discovers that the series is of murders is now carried out by Vaishali herself! Why is Vaishali’s ghost after her neighbors, how does Vasu find evidence that it is Vaishali who is committing the crimes, and who actually killed her is what makes this film interesting.

What is Good : Sindhu Menon is an amazing actress, who can express a wide gamut of emotions with very few movements. She lives Vaishali’s character to the T, both in her joyous and torturous moments. Aadi gets a very carefully and neatly etched character; and he does an impeccable job as a cop who is caught between reason and belief. He has come a long from his debut Oka V Chitram, and surely knows his limitations. Saranya Mohan, as Vaishali’s sister is cute. She might have not been able to perform upto the level in a few ‘interesting scenes’, but she doesn’t at least spoil them. Nanda, who plays Vaishali’s husband, has good screen presence. The other characters too do their parts well, and all the actors are supported equally well by the screenplay, cinematography and visual effects of the movie.

What is bad: Once is revealed to be the revenge of the ghost kind of a film, the screenplay had a chance to make things more interesting, at a faster rate. However, the director takes his time, and laboriously explains quite a few things to his audiences before he finds a ‘medium’ to get to the flashback. While even the flashback is too slow, it doesn’t get any better towards the climax, ending like any other typical horror movie– without logic. However, the director comes up with few scary situations to ensure that he keeps the energy flowing through the second half of the movie.

Technical Departments : The first thing that you will notice in Vaishali is Manoj Paramahamsa’s cinematography. The work is so good, that the camera almost becomes a silent narrator in the film. The camera movements are slow, and the overall texture of the movie is quite serious, maintained well with decent work from Thaman and the sound department. Screenplay too is intelligent, in the first half, and tries hard to stay like that in the second half too, but without much success. What’s appreciable about the screenplay is that, it takes ordinary day-to-day happenings (which might have impressed director Shankar) to drive its point. The Tamil version was titled Eeram, meaning wetness and the director ensures that there is some liquid in every scene possible. That says a lot about the kind of efforts director Arivazhagan had put in for the film.

Editing plays a very crucial part in revealing the story, and is especially appreciable in the scary scenes. The visual effects team, along with the art director, creates some very believable graphics too. There are few songs in the movie, all in the background, and obviously they have been shot well.

Bottomline : At its length, Vaishali is sometimes painful to sit through, but you will definitely enjoy its visuals and it has got few moments to savor.