Another Thumbs up from Richard

A Year after he gave Rahman a thumbs up, Richard Corliss returns to vindicate picking ARR, with this column in TIME.

Rahman laced some spectacular melodies that not only serve the drama, they create their own — as in the duet ballads Yeh Haseen Vadiyan and Roja Jaaneman, which first are grounded in recitative, then suddenly ascend into celestial melody. Either one could be a top 40 hit in a more enlightened American pop era. The soundtrack parades the composer’s gift for alchemizing outside influences until they are totally Tamil, totally Rahman. He plays with reggae and jungle rhythms, runs cool variations on Morricone’s scores for Italian westerns, fiddles with Broadway-style orchestrations. It was an astonishing debut.