There’s a forgotten brand of humour that works really well for the most part in Vishnu Edavan’s Hi. Reminding one of the loud, but likeable comedies from the ’90s made by directors like Ezhil and Sundar C, the intentional old-schoolness of Hi has a way of surprising you with its silliness. It doesn’t even attempt to play it safe or try the logical approach. If there’s a joke to be milked, the film will do anything, even if means hitting someone on the head with a pole. It’s desperate and immatur, but oftentimes also feels oddly sincere.
The plot itself is right out of the aforementioned earlier era of comedies. Both Mayil (Kavin) and Devyani (Nayanthara) are forced to leave their respective towns for absolutely opposite reasons. If Mayil wants to save face after a major rejection, that too from a relative, Devyani chooses to run away to reject a person she has no interest in. Their respective small-town families are just as loud as the both of them too, even though they take a lot longer to come into the picture. As confusions form a major part of such comedies, the film stumbles into a web of lies that uses everything from a girlfriend in Pakistan to a false pregnancy to keep things running. In a funny little set piece in a bar, Kavin explains the absurdity of this entanglement and even the film knows that it cannot get the actor to narrate the same dialogue again without letting go of details.
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