A prince of India is betrayed to the British by a treacherous friend. The wheel of karma returns them to their just positions in contemporary society: The prince becomes Selvaa (Bobby Simha), an earnest if somewhat lackadaisical office worker, while his betrayer returns as the wonderfully named John Christoper (Kalaiyarasan), the enforcer for a low-life, American-style debt collection agency.
Selvaa discovers an enchanted book telling the story of his past life, and falls in love with the gorgeous Umayaal (Reshmi Menon), who is suffering at the hands of John Christopher and his team of harassers.
Selvaa's rediscovery of his martyred self is the process of the rediscovery of sovereignty in the soul of the average person, dispossessed and demystified by their robotic conformity to alien corporate standards. By rejoining with his past self, he evolves — from sitting around applying to job ads in his underwear, to channeling a divine force of justice and retribution within him.
And so Selvaa becomes a symbol of honor, resistance, and a settling of accounts for poor Indians victimized by foreign student loan scams. A normal person who becomes a hero thanks to a firm set of values and spiritual guidance. No super powers needed.
This is a radical film, and certainly not your amoral, gratuitous Hollywood "revenge" fare. It is extremely relevant for its portrayal of tension underneath the comfort of the international yuppie class, talented individuals who have spent much of their adult lives cowed and intimidated by the endless predation of finance, perhaps also joining their ranks in the cycle of abuse.
Urumeen offers an alternate vision: a world where crimes are held to account, and, more importantly, history and identity still motivate our actions. Not all has been lost to the Western cult of the technicality and practicality of the moment. Princes dead by British hands still live, and may yet be found at the office.
As Americans, we should be embarrassed that it took a Tamil film to tell this story — one more fundamentally about our lives...
Final Word: Maybe we'll get it right in the next life...
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