Welcome to a film that is mostly set in a single location from debutant director G.S. Viknesh who has also written this film. A survival thriller, the film requires some stretch of the imagination though it is a realistic plot with a mother fighting for her son’s survival. Released on Disney+Hotstar on June 17, the thriller has Superstar Nayanthara playing the lead in this heroine-centric project.
Nayanthara plays Parvathy, a young mother with an eight-year-old son, Veera (Rithvik), who suffers from cystic fibrosis and needs to be on oxygen. The story begins with them needing to travel to Kochi from Coimbatore for a life-saving surgery for Veera. Given the heavy rains in Kerala, they are forced to travel by bus. Meanwhile, we are introduced by the director to the other characters who end up on this bus journey with Parvathy and Veera.
A terrible and unexpected landslide sees the bus submerged under a mountain of rock and mud, and this is where the story for survival of the passengers in a confined space with a limited supply of oxygen really kicks off. Veera is the only one with a large supply of oxygen, thanks to the oxygen tank he is hooked up to, and he has only his mother to protect him in this claustrophobic situation. What happens inside that bus among the passengers in this struggle for oxygen? Who survives in the end?
In the second wave of the Covid pandemic in India, we saw the struggle for oxygen and limited supply of it become a reality, with many losing their lives due to unavailability of the core chemical ingredient that helps us live. This will surely strike a chord with the audience where they see the fight for oxygen captured on screen by G.S. Viknesh though in a very different situation. The director must be commended for trying to make a feature film within a confined space like a bus but his writing falters in numerous places and logic takes a big backseat.
Having said that, O2 manages to make us feel the anxiety and tension Parvathy feels inside the bus, largely thanks to Nayanthara’s excellent performance. The bond she and Rithvik share has turned out well on screen, thanks to the good chemistry and apparent love the mother and child share. This is YouTube star Rithvik’s debut film and he has delivered especially in some of the crucial emotional and tense scenes that centre around him. The audience will be rooting for Veera and feel emotionally connected to him given he’s a small child who is fighting for his life.
Interestingly, there have been some international films that have been set in a confined space with a limited supply of oxygen and where the protagonist needs to get out to survive. Ryan Reynolds 2010 film Buried (where he is buried alive in a wooden coffin) and Oxygen, a 2021 French sci-fi thriller (a woman confined in a cryogenic unit), are prime examples. G.S. Viknesh has taken on a similar theme but localised it for the Indian audience, adding a lot of sentiment and drama to make it much more appealing and relatable.
O2 is a good concept and somewhat falters in the execution but despite that it’s the performances of Nayanthara and Rithvik that keep you engaged. What also stands out in this film is Tamizh Azhagan’s cinematography. Given that this is his first film, O2 is a good effort by director G.S. Viknesh.
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