Aghathiyaa Movie Review: Jivaa And Raashii Khanna’s Film Is A Grand But Confusing Tale With Perilous Ideas

Last Updated:February 28, 2025, 16:19 IST

Jiiva’s Aghathiyaa, which marks the debut of lyricist Pa Vijay as director, neither is clear about its genre nor about the ideology it wants to purport. 

Aghathiyaa movie review: Abrodolph Lincoler is one of the outrageously funny characters in the American animated series Rick And Morty’s hit episode Ricksy Business. He is a genetically engineered clone with the DNAs of Adolf Hitler and Abraham Lincoln. He is an experiment gone wrong. The idea was to create a more neutral ideological leader, but in reality, he ended up becoming a person with disoriented ideas. Sample one of his lines: “Prepared to be emancipated from your own inferior genes.” He is a diabolical cocktail of ideas. Watching Aghathiyaa reminded me of this character as the film’s ideology is as confusing as Lincoler. On one hand, the film, the directorial debut of lyricist Pa Vijay, has Dravidian newspapers Kudiyarasu and Viduthalai as some product placements throughout, and at the same time, it is a propaganda film about Siddha medicine that would make Periyar turn in his grave.

Before delving more into that, some context: Aghathiyaa is about the titular character played by Jiiva, an aspiring art director. On day one of his first film’s shoot, the heroine elopes with someone, turning the movie into a shelved project. However, Aghathiyaa has spent 30 lakhs out of his pocket to remodel a palace in Pondicherry into a haunted house for the film. Now, to retrieve the money his girlfriend Veena (Raashi Khanna) suggests he repurpose the set as a scary house. It becomes an instant hit among people, but soon real ghosts emerge out of the palace that are from the 1940s era. On further inspection, Aghathiyaa goes about finding video footage and clues from the 1940s that reveal a lot about Siddha doctor Siddhartha, who cured cancer with Indian herbs. He seems to have been wronged by the French colony, and it’s up to Aghathiyaa to correct the course of history. On top of the scary house conflict, we also learn that Aghathiyaa has a mom with cancer. He now has to solve the mystery of what went down in the 1940s to save his money and his mom. 

However, the film doesn’t stop there. It also has elements of reincarnation, patriotism, and a lot more, on which it squanders a lot of money in terms of lavish sets and tackier visuals. But the sole aim of the film seems to be the chest-thumping pride about Siddha medicine and its unrealised potential to cure cancer. While the science of it is still in debate, the film is relentless in selling you the past glory of Indian Vedic medicine. It is confusing because Siddhartha lauds both Dravidian ideas about rational thinking and divine medicine in the same breath. On one side, it takes a dig at Brahminical oppression by making a caricature out of Seshadri (Radha Ravi), a Brahmin Gomastha to the French antagonist. On the other hand, it criticizes the freebee schemes, a popular election strategy of the Dravidian parties. 

On top of such ideological confusion, the film also refuses to make up its mind about its genre. It kicks off as a horror, then moves on to become a period film, and then it ends up becoming a fantasy with a laughable fight sequence that will not hold water even against PS 2 games. While the production design and the making reveal a massive budget behind the project, everything looks gaudy. The sets look like expensive cardboard. And the costumes, the palace, and the dialogue look like they are straight out of a high-budget stage drama. There is also an attempt at comedy. Well, as the cliche goes, the jokes seem to be on the one making them.