5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Trending Movie Review: When viral content goes viral wrong
The Times of India
TNN, Jul 18, 2025, 2:27 PM IST
2.0
Trending Movie Synopsis:
A couple lose their YouTube channel and income, so they enter a dangerous reality show to save their relationship and finances.
Trending Movie Review: If cinema had a spam folder, films about social media and influencers would probably end up there. Here's the thing about making movies centered on social media: the moment characters start yakking about reels and virality, you're basically watching people discuss their screen time. Riveting stuff, truly.
Arjun ( Kalaiyarasan ) and Meera ( Priyalaya ) have built their whole life around YouTube fame–3 million subscribers, ECR mansion, the works. Then poof, channel gone, loans due, panic mode activated. Along comes this sketchy caller named "Mask" (subtle…) dangling a reality show carrot: play our twisted games, win cash prizes, maybe save your relationship. Or not.
The film can't decide if it's warning us about social media zombies, teaching us about greed (reminds one of that Asian man meme where he accidentally pushes a can under a garage door, gets double back, then keeps doubling down until he loses everything), or showing how lies eat relationships from the inside. It wants to be all three, succeeds at none. Every conversation about likes, reels, or virality just takes your attention off the screen and incidentally, to your phone.
They enter a game literally designed around lying to each other, then act gobsmacked when lies are told. To be fair, Kalaiyarasan and Priyalaya do a pretty good job with the material they have. The script could have used some experimentation. Why not let one of them fully embrace the deception? Give us a character who lies throughout, maintaining their partner's complete trust, and follows that path to its inevitable end.
Sam CS's score works overtime trying to inject tension into scenes. At two and a half hours, it could have used some trimming.
Written By:
Abhinav Subramanian
