Directed by Magizh Thirumeni, VidaaMuyarchi promises to deliver an intense suspense thriller, but somewhere down the line it just loses its grip over the narrative. At the end, the writers were neither able to delve deep into the psyche of the antagonists nor were they able to hold the attention of the audience. The way the writers constructed the buildup, the way they dealt with the subplots just made the conflicts seem a bit ineffective. That said, let’s find out what happened in the film and if our protagonist is able to save the day.
Spoiler Alert
Why did Kayal want to divorce Arjun?
There was a sense of unease as the film began, as we witnessed that Kayal and Arjun’s relationship was on the verge of ending. Kayal and Arjun had met 12 years ago, and what was meant to be a fairytale became mundane and tedious like every other relationship. Arjun still wanted to continue; he wanted to mend things and put in the effort to save his marriage, but Kayal had given up. She had been frustrated and disappointed in her relationship for a very long time. We never really get to know the nitty-gritties of their relationship, how it all gradually deteriorated, and why Kayal got so frustrated in the end. Probably it started after the miscarriage of their baby, but Arjun never blamed her for the mishap. We saw Kayal telling her friends and well-wishers how Arjun had changed as a man. Maybe Arjun was not able to meet Kayal’s expectations; maybe he had started taking her for granted; maybe things weren’t as thrilling and exciting as they used to be. Kayal cheated on Arjun with a man named Prakash. When Arjun asked her not to end their marriage, she told him that she had cheated on him. For any man, this is an earth-shattering revelation, but Arjun handled his emotions with a lot of grace and dignity. He didn’t shout at her, and he believed that he must have done something wrong, which is why his wife slept with another man. That said, it wasn’t easy for him to stomach the truth. Kayal told Arjun that she had made up her mind to file for a divorce. Arjun realized after having a chat with her that he wouldn’t be able to change her mind. Kayal told Arjun that she was going to her parents’ place, and the latter asked her if they could take one last road trip together and drive to Kayal’s parents’ home. Kayal agreed, though little did she know that the road trip was going to change their lives, her perspective on marriage, and most importantly, what she thought of Arjun forever.
What happened to Kayal during the road trip?
Kayal and Arjun were driving in their SUV when suddenly a car filled with a bunch of hooligans came in front of them out of nowhere. The man who was driving made an abusive gesture at them and then drove away. The incident was a bit traumatizing, because Arjun was traveling with a woman, and he just felt a bit worried for the safety of his wife. The roads were absolutely empty with not even a single man in sight. If anything had happened to Arjun and Kayal, then probably nobody would have even come to know about it. Arjun reached a petrol station where Kayal met another couple, who seemed to be extremely friendly. The woman, Deepika, started making conversation, and she introduced Kayal to her husband, Rakshith, too. Those men, with whom Arjun’s car almost collided, came to the petrol station, and it felt like they wanted to pick up a fight for no apparent reason. There was a heated exchange between them and Arjun, but the latter just left the scene before things escalated. Midway through their journey, Arjun’s car broke down. The car had some problems with its electrical system, and Arjun didn’t know who he should ask for help. Fortunately enough, Arjun and Kayal saw that same friendly couple coming towards them in their truck. Rakshith told Arjun that though he couldn’t wait with them, what he could do was go to the nearest bar and send a tow truck for them. The same bunch of hooligans who had followed Arjun to the gas station, quite suspiciously, once again came and stopped their car at a distance of around 200 meters away from them. Arjun had no clue what they were up to, but to his respite, they left after a few minutes.
Now, Kayal had been feeling nauseous for quite some time, and she wanted to use the restroom. Deepika offered to let her come with them, and Kayal agreed, as the couple seemed like quite genuine and good-natured people. Kayal left with Rakshith and Deepika while Arjun waited near his car. Arjun casually went and popped the bonnet of his car, just to try his luck one last time. He saw that a plug of the electronic system had been taken out, and there was nothing major wrong with the vehicle. Arjun’s car finally started, and he rushed to the nearest bar, where the couple were supposedly going to make a pit stop. Arjun went to the bar, but he didn’t find Kayal there. He asked the bartender and others who were present there, and nobody seemed to have seen Kayal. Arjun got a bit paranoid, and he rushed towards the nearest settlement, and that’s when he saw Rakshith’s truck in the distance. He chased the truck, but Rakshith just ignored him and kept on driving. Arjun had to literally overtake the truck and stop his car right in front of it. Rakshith came out of his truck, and he told Arjun that he didn’t recognize him and he had never met anyone named Kayal. Arjun asked Rakshith to stop playing petty games, but the man pretended that he had no clue what the former was talking about. Arjun stopped the sheriff of the local police department, who was passing in his vehicle. Arjun told the sheriff everything, but due to a lack of evidence, the police officer had to let Rakshith go, but he assured Arjun that he’d noted down the man’s name and licence plate number.
Arjun went back to the same bar, and that’s when he met a man who had some mental disorder, who told him that a bunch of men had kidnapped Kayal in a different truck. The man told Arjun where they had gone, but little did the latter know that he was walking straight into a trap. Arjun realized that the couple, i.e., Deepika and Rakshith, were the gang leaders, and those men, even the one who misled him, worked for them. Deepika and Rakshith had told Arjun that Kayal was in their custody and that he needed to give them 1.6 million manat if he wanted her alive.
How did Deepika and Rakshith meet for the first time?
Deepika and Rakshith had met for the first time in a mental asylum when the latter saved Deepika from getting physically abused by the guards. Both of them were patients, and according to the diagnosis of the doctors, it was not safe to let them roam free. In a flashback sequence in VidaaMuyarchi, we saw that the doctors told Deepika’s parents that she was suffering from dark triad traits with an antisocial personality disorder. Back in the day, Deepika had manipulated her roommate into taking her own life, and when she was asked the reason behind doing so, she said that she was just bored. Deepika and Rakshith broke out of the asylum, and the first thing the former did was kill her parents and take all their money. Deepika had written several letters to her parents, but they had never responded to her, and because of that, she wanted to teach them a lesson. In the present timeline, Deepika told Arjun that his wife had given them money to kill him, and she went and did something similar with Kayal, too. She told Kayal that Arjun had had an extramarital affair with their mutual friend Anu, and that was the reason why he didn’t get angry when Kayal told him about her affair. She told Kayal that Arjun wanted her dead, but little did Deepika know that it wasn’t easy to create that sort of misunderstanding between Kayal and Arjun. She tried the same method with Arjun, probably to create a rift between them, but she did not succeed. It was a fact that their marriage had fallen apart, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t have trust or respect in one another. Arjun told Deepika and Rakshith that he would give them all the money they wanted, and he begged them to leave his wife. It showed the kind of feelings the man had for Kayal. He was ready to put his own life on the line to save her, and she, too, knew that Arjun wouldn’t leave her side at any cost.
How Did Arjun save Kayal?
During VidaaMuyarchi’s ending, Arjun withdrew the money from a local bank in a place called Xizi, and he met Michael, one of Rakshith’s men, on the highway. Arjun managed to get the better of Michael and his boys, and he threatened the latter to tell him where his wife was if he wanted to live. Arjun had realized that Rakshith had no intention of leaving Kayal alive, and that he would have to find her on his own. Michael was able to escape with the money somehow, and Arjun was left stranded on one of the empty roads. Just before Michael had escaped, the sheriff had spotted them, and Michael ended up shooting the man. Arjun made sure that the sheriff was alive; he called for backup using the sheriff’s radio and then apologized to him for taking his car. Arjun, over a period of time, realized that, from the bartender he had met earlier to the old man who was sitting just outside the bank from where he withdrew money, everybody was working for Rakshith.
By invading their home and tying them up, Arjun was able to locate Rakshith’s hideout, and after a deadly fight in which both Deepika and Rakshith were killed, he was able to save Kayal. It came to be known that Rakshith and Deepika abducted women, did plastic surgery on them, and then sold them to a Russian gang to hide their actual identity. Deepika, considering she was such a brilliant manipulator, had gotten in touch with Anu, Kayal, and Arjun’s common friend and, through her, got all the information she needed to kidnap Kayal. Anu never had any cruel intentions for Arjun, she was a genuine friend of the couple. Arjun’s efforts were recognized by the local authorities, but the best thing that happened to him was that Kayal changed her decision to end their marriage. Kayal saw how the man risked his life and saved her and the kind of love he had for her. She accepted that every relationship could have its ups and downs, but that didn’t mean one should end it. Arjun couldn’t have been happier because he was the kind of man who just didn’t want to give up. He knew that, 12 years back, he had met the love of his life and just didn’t want to lose her at the end.
