In a powerful scene in actor Bose Venkat’s directorial debut Sir, village headmaster Annadurai poses a question to the frustrated labour workers of Mangollai. “What is this god that minds a school being in his way?” He is addressing people from oppressed communities, confused between choosing education or questioning their dominant caste landlords who prevent their betterment in the name of god. A sharp monologue about the weaponisation of religion follows with great effect. This sequence is a glimpse at what Sir could’ve been. Too bad, however, that this is merely a small part of its flashback — a sequence that’s part of a largely middling film.

Bose Venkat wants to make some pertinent observations through his film — the relationship between religion and inherent power, the importance of government education, and the god complex that dominant caste bigots often enjoy. But the issue is that the actor-turned-filmmaker chooses an extremely loud, template setup to discuss the said discourse. 

Sir largely follows the life of three generations of government teachers in a village in Tamil Nadu. Annadurai passes on his grit to his son Arasan (Saravanan), who in turn tries to pass down a third of the same strength of character to his son Gnanam (Vemal). The three men stick by the “education for all” model, fighting to enlighten the lowered caste sections of their village. Trouble follows suit in the form of the dominant caste Kolautchi family, who have taken pride in nurturing generations of entitled priests, causing perennial opposition to Annadurai’s family of teachers and their pursuit. 

Sir is undoubtedly rough around the edges. Iniyan J Harish’s camera routinely cuts to reaction shots of unending tears from onlookers during emotional moments. The narrative style is unwieldy and often takes us away from the seriousness of the issue. 

But technical and dramatic choices aside, the film challenges audiences to take any of its sermons seriously. The protagonist who fights for the right to education is the same man who gawps at a female teacher (played by Chaya Devi Kannan) and secretly watches her shower as Sean Rolden’s voice engulfs the room, rationalising voyeurism as romance. 

Apart from their love for teaching, the men in Gnanam’s family also share another thing in common: their apparent tendency to descend into “madness.” This part of the film is so uncomfortably shot and treated with such a melodramatic and heavy hand that it sort of becomes the film’s undoing. Great men are often branded crazy, Vemal’s Gnanam says at one point. When someone calls his father “crazy”, Gnanam furiously corrects them, not because they are being derogatory, but because his father isn’t “crazy.” The film’s skewed viewpoints are on full display in these portions.

It is also unsettling that the protagonists often take on a messiah complex. In making its bigoted villains a master of manipulation, it also ends up painting students and the workers from lowered castes as over-trusting and unsophisticated simpletons, who are incapable of forming their own opinions. And in doing so, the film unwittingly conforms to stereotypes of a different regard.

While the film’s heart is definitely in the right place, its reductive writing often lets it down, engulfing its powerful message in its wake.

If there’s anything Sruthi loves more than watching films, it’s writing about it. Sruthi Ganapathy Raman’s words can also be read in Film Companion, Scroll.in, and The Times of India.

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.