Rhythm, who is about to have her second child from a second marriage, is traumatised by the nightmares in which she sees a man with umbrella harming her lost son Ajay from her first marriage.The movie then goes to the past where Rhythm goes to a friends father's funeral where her son Ajay goes missing, he then is found crying. After that incident she goes to the school to pick up Ajay where a small girl comes and tells that Ajay is not playing with her. Rhythm then says that she will tell Ajay to play with her 2 hours extra Rhythm then asks the girl where is Ajay she then replies that Ajay went with a Charlie Chaplin masked man. Rhythm then searches for Ajay but he does not come back. She is constantly reminded of her lost son which depresses her. She is still determined to find her son believing him to be alive. She keeps getting back to the lake where Ajay was lost. On one such evening when she drives past the lake, she is reminded of him and she sees a man about to die. He tells her that he saw a lost child with a man donning a Charlie Chaplin outfit and asks her to escape before he comes to kill her. She runs to save herself, but notices the mystery man killing the other man.Having found a clue about the kidnapper of her son, she informs the police who tells her that a child named Anjana was kidnapped that evening in the similar fashion as that of Ajay her son. Despite the warnings from the officers, she gets back to the lake again to retrieve her kid. There she finds her son Ajay all grown up. They get him back to only understand he is tamed like an animal,who works only on commands. To bring him back, Rhythm and Gautham, Raghu join hands to help, but in vain. Ajay draws few pictures of the kidnapper. The picture reveals that the kidnapper is still stalking him. Dr. Mathi helps them. Rhythm comes close to finding the kidnapper's identity when he pays visit to Ajay, but is attacked by him. The rest of the plot deals with whether Rhythm find her nemesis and to what extent she travels to safeguard her loved ones.
In August 2019, it was announced that Keerthy Suresh had signed on an untitled "mystery thriller" film to be produced by Karthik Subbaraj under his banner Stone Bench Films, and directed by debutant Eashvar Karthic. The film, which was Stone Bench Films' third production venture, was also produced by Kaarthekeyen Santhanam, Sudhan Sundaram and Jayaram under Passion Studios. Principal photography began in September, and the film was made in Tamil and Telugu languages. The title Penguin was announced on 17 October, Keerthy Suresh's birthday. Principal photography wrapped up in November. The film features Madhampatty Rangaraj and Linga in pivotal roles in addition to several newcomers.
Soundtrack
The music was composed by Santhosh Narayanan. The song "Kolame" was released on 16 June 2020 as a single, along with its Telugu version "Praname", and Malayalam version "Omale".
Release
Penguin was released on 19 June 2020 on Prime Video in Tamil and Telugu with a Malayalam-dubbed version. It was originally scheduled for a theatrical release, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was dropped in favour of a digital release.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews. S. Srivatsan of The Hindu wrote, "Penguin is not a bad film but Eashvar’s idea of writing suspense gets clumsier as the story progresses." Shubra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film one and a half out of five stars stating that the film had a "weak" plot. M Suganth of The Times of India gave the film two-and-a-half out of five stars stating that the thriller was underwhelming. Karthik Keramalu from The Quint gave the film three out of five stars and stated that Keerthy Suresh gave a good performance but the thriller itself was "lazy".
