Now and then, life tends to find ways to break those big walls you build around your heart, the mental enclosures trauma puts you in, and the walls you build around your beliefs. In Venky Atluri’s charming family entertainer, Vishwanath & Sons (VAS), Suriya plays a middle-aged man who lives within a self-built cocoon, even when everything around him is as lavish and grand as in a materialistic man’s wet dream. Among the things Sanjay Vishwanath (Suriya), a business tycoon and an Olympic-medallist shooter, inherits from his father, Vijay Vishwanath (Rajiv Menon), are a business empire, a mantra to fight till the end, and deep insecurity about marital relationships. With this complicated father-son relationship at its core, director Venky Atluri’s family drama ends up as a well-written, larger-than-life entertainer that not only feels wholesome, but also bats for the right progressive registers.The way the rousing introduction of Suriya’s Sanjay is written tells you this isn’t going to be your routine hero vehicle. About to compete in the finals of the Paris Olympics 2024, Sanjay’s locker is vandalised by unknown men; his pistol is shattered, and his jersey is torn. Sanjay remembers what his late father taught him — when something gets broken, try your best to fix it, and opt for a new one only if repairing is not possible. Sanjay fixes his pistol and, using the very same spray can used to vandalise his locker, he writes ‘India’ on his jersey and steps out for the game. On the surface, this is a ‘mass’ moment for a star’s entry, but on a deeper level, this tells you who Sanjay is, how much his father meant to him, and therefore, why he has become who he is after what happened with his father.Vishwanath and Sons (Tamil)Director: Venky AtluriCast: Suriya, Mamitha Baiju, Radhika Sarathkumar, Raveena TandonRuntime: 161 minutesStoryline: A wealthy, emotionally guarded Olympic shooter who has sworn off marriage finds his carefully ordered life upended when the surrogate mother of his ailing son enters his family and falls in love with himThroughout the next 161 minutes, we see Sanjay do just what his father taught him to — he puts his heart into finding solutions to every issue that arises. Very attached to his mother, Nirmala Devi (a fantastic Radhika Sarathkumar), Sanjay, a bachelor in his forties, finally listens to her plea for an heir to the family: he fathers a child through surrogacy. When the child, named Abhay, ends up in a hospital with a bone marrow disorder, he tracks down the surrogate mother, Maddy (Mamitha Baiju), and brings her home since her bone marrow can help cure the child. Now, what if Maddy, after spending many months with Sanjay and his family, falls in love with him? After all, this directly collides with his long-standing resolve not to get married. Will he confront his deep insecurities? Even if that is possible, will he agree to marry someone who is 20 years younger than him? This forms the rest of the story of VAS.Sanjay gets to do all the above and more because…well, he can. Wealth is Sanjay’s superpower, and you begin to wonder if he might end up buying the whole city to suit his needs. And the film too doesn’t hide it; every pixel screams money, and every shot revels in lavishness. The storytelling, therefore, feels too convenient at times. But Venky hardly attempts to hide this. VAS is essentially a Bruce Wayne story; in fact, I couldn’t stop chuckling when Sanjay almost buys a hotel to teach the hotel owner’s rich brat son a lesson. Yet, despite this convenience, the story of Vishwanath & Sons is so grounded in genuine emotions that you willingly live this dreamlike life — and gladly, all this opulence ensures most other real-world problems do not obstruct Venky’s narrative goals.