The Vvaan trailer has arrived, but the big question is whether it has done enough to excite the audience. The film is being positioned as a never before seen cinematic take on Indian folklore. Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia headline a world that promises folklore, supernatural elements, adventure, action and romance.
The ambition is evident. The excitement, unfortunately, isn’t. The problem with The Vvaan is not the idea. Indian folklore offers enormous possibilities for mainstream cinema. The problem is what the trailer does with it. Instead of making the world feel fresh and unfamiliar, much of what we see feels like a combination of elements that audiences have encountered before.
And when a film is being positioned as something unprecedented, that familiarity becomes a concern.
There is also a sense that The Vvaan is trying to pack too much into one proposition. Horror, fantasy, adventure, romance and action are all fighting for attention, while the folklore itself is expected to provide the film with its uniqueness. Rather than creating intrigue, the trailer ends up making the film’s identity somewhat difficult to pin down.
This is particularly disappointing because the concept has the potential to be genuinely exciting. A rooted Indian folklore story mounted on a large commercial canvas could be exactly the kind of theatrical experience audiences are looking for.
But the trailer has to sell that experience first.
For now, The Vvaan certainly does not create the urgency to watch it in theatres.
Because at the moment, the question is simple: is The Vvaan really taking us somewhere we have never been before, or is it taking us down a road we have already travelled?
