Connect begins by a beach, as waves crash the shore. Somebody is strumming a guitar, and a girl – Ammu aka Anna, played by Haniya Nafisa – is heard humming a tune. Meen kannadi thottikkul thedum oar kadale vazhava meaning 'life for a fish who is searching for the ocean inside an aquarium'.
As she sings, her parents Susan, played by Nayanthara, and Joseph Benoy, played by Vinay Rai, talk about her going to the London Trinity College to learn music. Her father and mother disagree. Joseph, a doctor, gets a call from the hospital and gets to work. It is the Covid outbreak and Joseph works 24x7, without going back home. He begins treating Covid patients. Susan and Ammu get confined inside the four walls of their house. The three connect through Zoom and online calls. Susan’s father Arthur Samuel, played by Sathyaraj, too connects with them over the phone. Soon, Joseph dies of Covid. Ammu who is attached to her father, becomes distraught. To overcome her loneliness, she tries to reach out to him through an ouija board. Whether she meets her father, what happens to Ammu and how does Susan deal with it all, forms the rest of the story.
Nayanthara is once again at her best in delivering whatever the director wanted. The fear in her eyes - sometimes as she looks for her daughter in a dark room, or when she turns the cross that is upside down, or when she prays while being terrified – is palpable. While it is her second film after Maya with director Ashwin Saravanan, for the latter it is his fourth - three of which have been horror flicks. Connect often gets scary, thanks especially to Nafisa's brilliant portrayal of Ammu.
Most of the shots are in dark rooms, the only light coming from the candles.
With the film revolving around the three characters, in the backdrop of the lockdown, 99 minutes might seem long.
Film: Connect
Language: Tamil
Director: Ashwin Saravanan
Cast: Nayanthara, Anupam Kher, Sathyaraj and others
Rating: 3/5
