Stage Movie Review: Suriya Redefines Mass In Jithu Madhavan’s Thrilling Dark Comedy ‘Stage’
A group of young women hesitates between picking up their bags from the theater’s baggage counter and continuing to watch the movie before the excitement wears off. This is the ‘scene’ I witnessed today on Deepavali, after watching the morning screening of Suriya’s Scene – a Deepavali edition that feels like a cinematic version of watching 10,000 wala flip flops with timed perfection.
Directed by Aavesham creator Jithu Madhavan, Scene is an engaging and entertaining dark comedy with so many experiences that picking its most satisfying highlight is a difficult task. Let’s start with Suriya, for whom it will undoubtedly be a hat-trick of hits in 2026.
With a career spanning nearly 30 years, Suriya has it all “on stage” (all puns in this review intended). In fact, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that he’s one of those rare stars who can line up, experiment if he wants, or choose less risky mass entertainers and still win over his audience more often than not. His unconventional Retroended to mixed results, but hardly seems to have struck a chord with the experimentalist in him – Scene finds itself in Jithu Madhavan, a filmmaker who understands the “meat” on a refreshingly cerebral level. If Nelson recalibrated Superstar Rajinikanth for a modern audience in Jailer 2, Jithu Madhavan finds a satisfying unification between Suriya’s skills as a superstar and an artist who disappears into the story.
Suriya in a still from ‘Scene’ | Photo credit: Zhagaram Studios
There’s a moment in Scene where Suriya, playing cop Inbaraj, breaks the fourth wall and asks, “Who is this Suriya? Is he some big shot?” On paper, you might mistake this for the routine meta-ness we’re used to in modern star vehicles, but here Jithu changes the scene. Suriya, the star, becomes a joke, fodder for Inbaraj, the protagonist of Scene. Even his famous punch line “Ondra’s a tonne weight” from Singam (2010) comes with a comic twist. Here Jithu wishes to overwrite ‘mass’. The real star is no longer Suriya but the excellent form of the film.
Jithu plays with the conventional rules from the beginning. Upset that his boss Stephen (Lal) refuses to accept his resignation, Inbaraj lives his life as an overachiever bored with success. He’s managed to crack countless high-profile cases without breaking a sweat, including the sensational case of the notorious perfume killer. Inba smokes like a chimney, wears the same house clothes to the office, and acts like a cynical, unsociable know-it-all. “He has become so lazy that he does not even enter the crime scene, instead asking his subordinates to do the dirty work or reciting the case record repeatedly,” complains one of the subordinates. Jithu inundates these opening sequences with his trademark eccentricities, but quickly pulls the rug out from under your feet by revealing the specific condition Inba suffers from.
It’s not something you wouldn’t see coming (a sharp-eyed audience could find plenty of visual clues), but the character design is handled quite cleverly – such as the detail of why a smartphone is so important to Inbu that he has it hanging from his sleeve. By the time Inba’s fascinating world unfolds and the film unravels the arc of a truly interesting protagonist, writer Jithu would have you hooked on Eeswaran (Naslen), a cold-blooded serial killer who has temporarily adopted the Perfume Killer’s modus operandi for his ‘business’. Eeswaran approaches the killing with procedural indifference, calling it a business like no other. One gut-wrenching line of dialogue—about how everyone wishes they could kill someone at one point in their lives—makes him infect his evil and almost convict the viewer.
If Inba is methodical and prepared, Eeswaran is alert and preemptive. With such a hero and a villain in sight, Jithu comfortably maneuvers through the first half. Scenes flow so smoothly in Scene that even when there’s a lot happening on the screen, you hardly notice the passage of time. Sharp framing and effective editing (kudos to Ajmal Sabu) – and cinematographer Vineeth Augustian’s stylishly conceived shots and spare but effective slow-motion – ensure that the 149-minute set moves like clockwork.
scene (Tamil)
Directed by Jithu Madhavan
Cast: Suriya, Nazriya Nazim, Naslen, Lal
Duration: 149 minutes
Plot: A cynical eccentric cop teams up with a group of misfits to track down a serial killer
Populating the world of Inba with colorful characters and humor distracts you from the fact that Inba and Eeswaran’s arcs won’t meet for a long time. Jith’s signature dark humor which we have seen in great form in his previous two films, Romancham and Aavesham, once again becomes the biggest highlight of Scene. After the first half of Jailer 2, Scene is easily one of the funniest movies with a high joke-per-second ratio. From the henchman’s line to his boss in the graveyard to how the “mass-y” scene ends with Inba in a wheelchair, even a few seconds window gets a joke or two to leave you cracking up. Watch out, this ‘meme godown’ is about to take over social media!
The scene shifts into gear again with the arrival of Iridayaraj (Anandraj in a surprise turn), Inba’s father and Selvi, Inba’s mother. In Romancham and Aavesham, Jithu explored the idea of found family, with boys and men living far from home building life-affirming bonds with each other. This extends merrily to the Scene; Even though Iridayaraj and Selvi are Inba’s parents, the three feel like incompatible colleagues who are forced to work together. Along with Maya (welcome back, Nazriyo), the four become a rogue team of miscreants hunting the Eeswarans—a woman with neuropsychological issues, a man with a specific sensory disorder, a serial profiler with a drinking problem, and an ex-forensic surgeon with short-term memory loss.
This means that the emotional core of the film lies in the relationship between Inba and Maya – a sensitive idea that Jithu handles with care. Maya becomes the third eye through which Inba perceives the world, but she also becomes the missing piece of the puzzle he didn’t know he needed. Props to Jithu for weaving it into the film’s narrative and having Maya become Inba’s Jarvis Iron Man (Jithu interestingly is also a great example of how AI can be used for good). The thematic strength of Scene lies in how Jithu writes this emotional core, and the film shows the dignity of the condition its protagonist suffers from. It’s good writing that points out how someone as confident and devil-may-care as Inba can have his own demons in the dark. Inba feels insecure about his physical condition, so it’s quite emotional to see him go through this arc of self-acceptance. Most importantly, Jithu manages to squeeze humor out of Inba without making fun of his condition. In the scene where he plays Ilaiyaraaja’s Thendral Vandhu (a scene reminiscent of Suriya’s Ghajini), Jithu goes after our heart, then gags it and then tugs at your heart again, all in a matter of minutes – walking a tightrope is never easy, but the filmmaker pulls it off in many scenes.
Nazriya in a still from ‘Scene’ | Photo credit: Zhagaram Studios
Nazriya gives quite a measured performance as Maya. In a scene that celebrates girl power, Suriya takes the joke and elevates Maya to a skilled kung fu fighter. However, why this Maye fighter wasn’t used in a later scene in the second half defies scene-level logic. In fact, this scene tries to promote Eeswaran as a much more dangerous threat, but the script strangely lacks justification for these abilities. Sure, Jithu eschews the usual expositional story, but while Eeswaran may be as smart as Inba and notorious, his despicableness doesn’t come through much because while we see the ruins of his ‘business’, we don’t actually see him commit a crime.
Despite these flaws, however, Scene is a stage entertainer and Jithu Madhavan proves that star vehicles can have both weight and class. And at the end of the day, Suriya’s time is under the sun. In the film, Maya teaches Inba a positive affirmation: “I’m the best. I can do anything. And today is my day.” Whether Suriya is the best or can do anything is up to the audience but today is definitely his day. Truly a ‘scene’ to behold.
The scene is currently playing in theaters
Published – 06 Nov 2026 14:38 IST