Yavarum Nalam
Yavarum Nalam (transl. All are fine) is a 2009 Indian Tamil-language psychological horror film written and directed by Vikram Kumar. The film stars Madhavan and Neetu Chandra in the lead roles. Produced by Suresh Balaje and George Pius, the film was simultaneously filmed and released in Hindi as 13B: Fear Has a New Address with a slightly different cast. It was also later dubbed into Telugu as 13-Padamoodu, while re-shot a few scenes with Ravi Babu. The film's soundtrack was composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, while Tubby-Parik provided the background score. Released on 6 March 2009, the film received highly positive reviews and became a blockbuster. Rediff called the film as one of the best films of 2009.[3]
| Yavarum Nalam / 13B: Fear Has a New Address | |
|---|---|
 The Tamil theatrical release poster as Yavarum Nalam. | |
| Directed by | Vikram Kumar |
| Produced by |
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| Written by |
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| Screenplay by |
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| Story by |
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| Starring | |
| Music by |
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| Cinematography | P. C. Sreeram |
| Edited by | Sreekar Prasad |
| Distributed by | Big Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 137 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language |
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| Budget | ₹6 crore (equivalent to ₹12 crore or US$1.7 million in 2019)[1] |
| Box office | |
Plot
Manohar, (Madhavan), moves into a new apartment, 13B, on the 13th floor with his family, fulfilling his life's biggest dream. But they encounter a series of small but strange incidents (such as milk getting spoiled), which are regarded as inauspicious by his family but shrugged off by an excited Manohar. The elevator in the apartment works for everyone in the building except Manohar, which bothers him.
The women in the family get hooked onto a new TV show Yavarum Nalam (Everyone Is Well, or Sab Khairiyat in Hindi). The show is about a family eerily similar to Manohar's who have also just moved into a new house as they have. As the serial unfolds, Manohar notices that the incidents that happen in the serial are a reflection of what is happening to his family. One day Manohar finds the blind man's dog trying to find something in the sand, Manohar stops the dog and takes it to its owner. He also notices that his camera takes distorted pictures of him while he is in the apartment, but not while he is outside the apartment. Things like his sister graduating, his wife getting pregnant and later suffering a miscarriage are all also shown in the serial. Priya is saved by their longtime family friend and doctor, Dr. Balu. The rest of the family remains oblivious to the similarities and Manohar prefers it that way to avoid panic.
Things start taking a turn for the worse in the serial and Manohar becomes terrified that the same might happen to his family. He now wants to know who is behind the making of the TV show. Later that night he asks his wife about the latest episode of the serial, she reveals the same story to him as the neighbour's dog digging something and the serial is finished for that day . Manohar then wakes up at midnight and digs the ground on the rainy night and finds a diary with photographs pasted of the same family coming in the serial. He then unravels a terrifying secret: the apartment they live in shared their address with a house where a family of eight (similar to Manohar's family) was butchered back in 1977. It was the family of a TV news anchor named Chitra. On the day of Chitra's engagement, an ardent fan (Shriram Shinde in the 13B version) of Chitra wanted to stop the engagement and failed in doing so. Disheartened, he committed suicide. Subsequently, all members of Chitra's family were murdered with a hammer in a single day. The blame rested on the lunatic brother in the family, as he had been seen with the hammer last. The police officer investigating the case also committed suicide by hanging himself in the same house.
Manohar and his policeman friend Shiva meet the madman brother Senthil, who apparently goes crazy after seeing a TV show in an asylum. They then meet Chitra's former fiancé Ramchandar, who tried to plead for Senthil's innocence because he got covered in blood while he hugged the bodies of his family. After researching one night, Manohar has a nightmare of the 13B murderer climbing the stairs to kill his family. When Manohar tries to climb the stairs, he always ends up on the 2nd floor. Suddely Manohar wakes up from sleep and he realises that the events took place from digging the diary of photographs to the climbing the stairs are actually happening in his dream. He goes to the hall and witnesses the climax of Yavarum Nalam when they are showing the murderer's identity: Manohar's face is shown as the killer.
On the way Manohar had been scared that his face is shown as a killer and then Dr. Balu had decided to tell him to shift his family to New Delhi so that the 13B family does not know where they are. Dr. Balu books flight tickets to New Delhi And went to Manohar's apartment. On the way, Dr. Balu comes to Manohar's Apartment. Balu gives the flight tickets to Manohar's wife. When he comes home, news reporter Chitra was reading news about the murder of the 13B family and after she finished reading the news, she was seen talking to Dr. Balu about why he murdered the 13B family.
What follows is the climax: the 13B murderer is Dr. Balu(Sachin Khedekar), who sees the family members' faces as the serial family members. It was he who killed them in the 1970s on behalf of his brother, the spurned fan, and also killed the police officer who caught him red-handed. Manohar kills Dr. Balu.
The story ends with Manohar living a normal life with a new dog in the family; the milk is not getting spoiled anymore. They bring Senthil home and the lift in the apartment finally works for Manohar. The next day, when Manohar uses the lift, he receives a call from Dr. Balu, who says that while the 13B family haunts the TV, he haunts Manohar's phone. The lift falls down quickly, killing him, then the screen ends.
Cast
| Actor (Tamil version) | Actor (Hindi) | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Madhavan | Manohar a.k.a. Manu | |
| Neetu Chandra | Priya, Manohar's wife | |
| Ravi Babu | Murali Sharma | Inspector Shiva |
| Sachin Khedekar | Dr. Balu / Dr. Shinde | |
| Sanjaih Bokaria | Manoj, Manohar's elder brother | |
| Amitha Rajan | Deepa | |
| Saranya | Poonam Dhillon | Manohar's mother |
| Dhritiman Chatterjee | Mr.Thyagarajan / Mr.Kamdhar | |
| Deepak Dobriyal | Senthil / Ashok | |
| Sampath Raj | Advocate Ramachandran / Advocate Ram Charan | |
| Kushboo Sundar | Roshan Abbas | Show host |
| Rachana Maurya | in an item number | |
| Rohini | TV Reporter | |
Family members
- Hindi version
- Suhasini Muley
- Vinay Jain
- Amar Upadhayay
- Meera Vasudevan
- Tamil version
- S. M. Vasanth
- Rishi
- Vanaja
- Roopashree
Production
Development
The director of the film, Vikram Kumar, won a National Award for his short film "Silent Scream". Here he teamed up with cinematographer P. C. Sreeram, editor Sreekar Prasad, sound designer A. S. Lakshminarayanan and art director Sameer Chanda, who also happen to be National Film Award winners. The Hindi working title was Channel.[4]
Casting
Esha Deol and Kareena Kapoor were originally considered for the lead role which eventually went to Neetu Chandra. Lead actress Neetu Chandra made her Tamil debut with Yaavarum Nalam. She has starred in successful Hindi films like Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! and Traffic Signal. Lead actor Madhavan and cinematographer P. C. Sreeram had previously worked together on the hit movie Alaipayuthey. Veteran Bengali actor Dhritiman Chatterjee made his Tamil cinema debut in Yaavarum Nalam, but Tamil was not a new language for him, as he is a resident of Chennai. He played the same role in the Hindi version of the film. Veteran Marathi actor Sachin Khedekar, who made his debut in Tamil cinema with Yaavarum Nalam, took great effort in learning his lines. A voice CD was sent to him with his lines readout so that he would get familiar with the Tamil dialogue. He plays the same character in the Hindi version as well.
Filming
The majority of the film takes place inside an apartment. A temporary shooting floor was created from scratch in Egmore, Chennai, inside which an elaborate apartment set was erected.
Reception
The film received highly positive reviews from critics.
Times of India gave the movie a 3.5/5 rating and said, "Watch out for some zippy cinematography, a stylized monochrome tint, and some snazzy editing. Great timepass. Go for it."[5]
Idlebrain.com gave it 2.5 out of 5 stars and stated, "The first half of the film is a little boring. The way the story unfolds in the second half is good. But the flashback episode and the climax is not shot in a gripping manner. The plus points of the film are the story, cinematography, and Madhavan. The negative points are inconsistent screenplay and runtime. Though it has an interesting plot point, 13B fails due to lack of gripping narration."[6]
Rajeev Masand rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and wrote, "13B is the kind of convenient thriller where you do get a twist ending, but the kind in which anything goes. The logic behind the twist and the back-story to the supernatural premise is so convoluted, it's hardly clever."[7]
Hindustan Times gave the movie 2 out of 5 stars and stated, "If you like horror films, this one's par for the course, especially in the first half, where Vikram K Kumar uses the TV set for an interesting premise, the actors do their bit and the camera picks up suitably weird angles."[8]
Rediff.com rated the film 2 out of 5 stars and said, "One simply wishes it didn't have to be such hard work getting to the point, for the filmmakers as well as the audience."[9]
Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film 1.5 out of 5 stars and said that "On the whole, 13B is interesting in parts, not in entirety."[10]
Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express said, "Forget the irritating item numbers. Stay with the film, and you will come to a smart little end, and leave half-smiling, half-wondering: is this what the future holds?"[11]
Film Journal International wrote in their review, "J-horror-styled supernatural thriller from India doesn't have the gore or intensity of the real thing, and for many in the mainstream, that's a relief. Low-budget-looking but effective, with a great central gimmick."[12]
Release
The satellite rights of the film's Tamil version were secured by Kalaignar. The film's Tamil version was given a "U/A" certificate by the Indian Censor Board, but the Hindi version got an "A" certificate from the Censor Board.
Soundtrack
The film's music was composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, while the lyrics in Hindi and Tamil were penned by Neelesh Mishra and Thamarai respectively.
| Yaavarum Nalam/13B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soundtrack album by | ||||
| Released | 6 February 2009 | |||
| Recorded | 2008 | |||
| Genre | Feature film soundtrack | |||
| Length | 39:33 | |||
| Language | ||||
| Label | Big Music T-Series | |||
| Producer | Shankar Ehsaan Loy | |||
| Shankar Ehsaan Loy chronology | ||||
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Tamil
| No. | Title | Artist(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Chinnakkuyil Koovam" | Karthik | 4:30 |
| 2. | "Yavarum Nalam" | Shankar Mahadevan | 1:46 |
| 3. | "Oh Sexy Mama" | Anuradha Sriram, Jassie Gift | 4:06 |
| 4. | "Yavarum Nalam" (Theme) | 4:57 | |
| 5. | "Kaatrilae Vaasame" | K. S. Chitra, Shankar Mahadevan | 4:25 |
| 6. | "Yaavarum Nalam" (Remix) | Shankar Mahadevan | 4:04 |
| 7. | "Kaatrilae Vaasame" (Remix) | K. S. Chitra, Shankar Mahadevan | 6:04 |
| 8. | "Oh Sexy Mama" (Remix) | Anuradha Sriram, Jassie Gift | 4:37 |
| 9. | "Chinnakkuyil Koovam" (Remix) | Karthik | 5:08 |
Hindi
| No. | Title | Artist(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Sab Khairiyat Hai" | Shankar Mahadevan | 1:46 |
| 2. | "Bade Se Shehar Mein" | Karthik, Shankar Mahadevan | 4:30 |
| 3. | "Oh Sexy Mama" | Anushka Manchanda, Baba Sehgal, Loy Mendonsa | 4:06 |
| 4. | "13 B" (Theme) | 4:57 | |
| 5. | "Aasma Odhkar" | K. S. Chitra, Shankar Mahadevan | 4:25 |
| 6. | "Sab Khairiyat Hai" (Remix) | Shankar Mahadevan | 4:04 |
| 7. | "Aasma Odhkar" (Remix) | K. S. Chitra, Shankar Mahadevan | 6:04 |
| 8. | "Oh Crazy Mama" | Akriti Kakkar, Hrishikesh Kamerkar, Rajiv Sunderasan, Anushka Manchanda, Baba Sehgal, Loy Mendonsa | 4:37 |
| 9. | "Bade Se Shehar Mein" (Remix) | Karthik | 5:08 |
See also
References
- "Top 10 movies of 2009". Hindustan Times. 24 December 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2012.
- "All India 2009". Box Office India. Archived from the original on 15 January 2011.
- http://m.rediff.com/movies/slide-show/slide-show-1-south-top-tamil-films-of-2009/20091215.htm
- Chennai365.com: "Yavarum Nalam Movie Photo Gallery"
- "13B Movie Review: Critic Review of 13B by Times of India". Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- "13b Hindi film review - idlebrain.com - Madhavan & Neetu Chandra". Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- "House of horrors". Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- "Review: 13B". Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- "Spooky 13B works out in the end". Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- "13B Review - Bollywood Hungama". Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- "13 B, Fear Has A New Address (Movie Review)". Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- "Film Review: 13B". Retrieved 28 July 2018.
- Tamil Cinema Top Ten - Yavarum Nalam
- "Entertainment News Headlines in Tamil | Entertainment News – Yahoo! Dinamalar Tamil News". In.tamil.yahoo.com. 20 April 2011. Retrieved 16 March 2012.
- Yavarum Nalam collects 16 crore at the box office
- "Yaavarum Nalam - Behindwoods.com - Tamil Top Ten Movies - Guru En Aalu Mariyadhai Sarvvam Rajadhi Raja Ayan". Behindwoods.com. Retrieved 16 March 2012.
- [All India 2009 http://www.boxofficeindia.com/showProd.php?itemCat=290&catName=MjAwOQ Box Office India]
External links
- Yavarum Nalam at IMDb
- BehindWoods.com: "Maddy Vikram combo to be a thrill ride", by Behindwoods News Bureau, 18 December 2007