Teddy (film)

Teddy is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language fantasy action film written and directed by Shakti Soundar Rajan. The film features a teddy bear in the title role, along with Arya, Sayyeshaa, Sathish, Karunakaran and Magizh Thirumeni. The soundtrack and film score were composed by D. Imman and produced by K. E. Gnanavel Raja under his production banner Studio Green.

Teddy is the first Tamil film to use an Indian animation company to design a special animated character and the second motion-capture film in Tamil after Kochadaiiyaan (2014). The film was released worldwide on 12 March 2021 on Disney+ Hotstar and received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot
Srividya Purushottaman, alias Sri, is a college student, who helps a person who had been in an accident and in the process, gets her hand injured. She is sent to a hospital where she is given IV drugs to cause an artificially induced coma. Sri awakens and is given the medicine and her soul gets transferred to a teddy bear.

Shivanarayanan, aka Shiva, is an unemployed graduate, who has eidetic memory and OCD which makes him learn things faster. After his mother, Lakshmi and his friend take him to meet Dr. Priya Gopal, who is a psychiatrist, for a session, but to no avail.

One night, Shiva saves a teenager from goons, and Sri (whose soul is in the teddy bear) witnesses the fight and meets him in the morning. Shiva first believes it to be a dream, but soon understands that it's real. Sri tells Shiva that she needs to see her boyfriend Rishi, where Sri and Shiva realize that Rishi is a fraud and Sri gets heart broken. After Shiva and his friend Ramachandran take Srividya to her house, he sees Sri's father Purushottaman trying to commit suicide, Shiva saves him and her mother requests them to find her. Shiva promises to find Srividya. Shiva and Sri investigate to find her body, which was transferred from the hospital. Shiva sends Sri as a package with a barcode from the hospital and also gives her a smartphone to track the location where the parcel will be sent.

The parcel reaches the destination, which turns out to be Azerbaijan where Sri uses a phone of a beggar and takes a selfie in front of a restaurant and sends it to Shiva through Facebook. Shiva sells all the shares for expenses and travels to Azerbaijan. While traveling, he meets Karthik, who has been working in Azerbaijan for three years. Shiva and Sri unite and it makes Karthik believe the story divulged by Shiva. They decided to search for Sri's body in one of the brothel in the place. Sri found the same tattoo that she saw in the hands of the parcel deliverer. Deducing the clues given by the person, Shiva realized about the huge medical scam and deduced that they had kidnapped Sri for her rare-blood type which is used to cure billionaires.

The mastermind behind the scam is Dr. Varadharajan, who runs an illegal organ scam. He injects many people to induce coma and remove their organs. Shiva and Sri seek the help of the police, where they legally solve the case. Sri becomes conscious, while the soul in the Teddy leaves. Sri can't remember Shiva and his hardwork to save her. They arrive back to India and Sri reunites with her parents. One year later, Sri starts following Shiva and takes pictures of him, as she developed unconditional feelings for him. Shiva reciprocates his feelings, and they get married and lead a happy life. Shiva realizes that when Sri falls asleep, her soul gets transferred back to the teddy.

Cast

 * Arya as Shivanarayanan aka Shiva
 * Sayyeshaa as Srividya Purushottaman (Sri)
 * Nimmi Harshan (voice) & E.B. Gokulan (motion capture) as Teddy
 * Sakshi Agarwal as Dr. Priya Gopal (Guest appearance)
 * Magizh Thirumeni as Dr. Varadarajan
 * Sathish as Ramachandran, Shiva's friend
 * Karunakaran as Karthik
 * Raja Rudrakodi as Rishi, Srividya's boyfriend
 * Masoom Shankar as Sarah
 * R. N. R. Manohar as Purushottaman, Srividya's father
 * Mona Bedre as Srividya's mother
 * Praveena as Lakshmi, Shiva's mother
 * Abdool Lee as Varadharajan's assistant
 * Shabeer Kallarakkal as Harish
 * Pradeep K Vijayan as Embassy Officer
 * Yoann Periver as Rabbids

Production
The film was announced by Shakti Soundar Rajan in March 2019 which also marked his fifth directorial venture and maiden collaboration with actor Arya. The principal photography of the film commenced in May 2019. Sakshi Agarwal was approached to play a supporting role after participating in the reality TV show Bigg Boss Tamil 3.

Magizh Thirumeni who was known for his directorial venture Thadam was cast to play a supporting role which also marked his acting debut. The theme of the film revolves around the special character Teddy Bear in animation which would appear for nearly 80 minutes of the film. The film was predominantly shot in Chennai and in a few locations across Europe.

The shooting portion of the film was wrapped up in February 2020. In June 2020, Thirumeni confirmed the film would proceed with a theatrical release, despite rumours that they were exploring an OTT media service release.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack of the film is composed by D. Imman, continuing his collaboration with the director for the third time after Miruthan (2016) and Tik Tik Tik (2018). The lyrics are written by Madhan Karky. The first single En Iniya Thanimaye which was sung by Sid Sriram was released on 14 February 2020 coinciding with the Valentine's Day. Later the video song of "En Iniya Thanimaye" was released on 1 March 2021.

Release
Teddy was scheduled to release on 24 April 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The film was released worldwide via Hotstar on 12 March 2021.

Reception
Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion South wrote, "Tamil cinema's high-concept king, Shakti Soundar Rajan, takes a tumble with this story about a giant talking bear."