Movie Review – June

June stresses on the fact that, why one shouldn’t stress much and go easy on life

June is a bundle of joy. As much as I hated April in ‘500 Days of Summer’, I loved June. Coinciding with the opening days of school, the name of her and the movie was just about apt. Even though the film traverses through a girl’s life, it’s the June month school life which gets the priority. In the beginning, there is even a note where it asks us to get into a girl’s shoes. What I expected to be a girls-only movie, was not a girly one, instead a mature coming of age drama. It’s so wonderful to see such school films amidst silly ones like ‘Pattalam’ and ‘Oru Adaar Love’ where actors are caricatures and stories are dumb.

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Seeing the posters and description, it looked like a movie which is going to deal with a school girls’ life. But the opening was unique. In a way, scary. Seeing a lonely girl in a Varkala bar during new years eve, is not something one would immediately be happy about. So, I was restless thinking nothing bad should happen to her, that, without even knowing about her character, we hadn’t spent any time with the girl but she has a certain bit of charm about her which makes us like her instantly. Thankfully nothing of that sort happens and she strikes a chord with everyone around there. So that was a relief which sets the tone of the movie too.

The flashback starts with June getting ready to school for her eleventh standard. Like every girl of her age she too wants to look her best so she styles her hair, ups her skirts and downs her socks, only to be scolded by mom, Mini Joy (Aswathi Menon) makes her wear double ponytail in the end. Her dad, ‘Panama’ Joy (Joju George) a much cooler person, cool enough to share a beer with her daughter, doesn’t say anything like that, but just advises her to study carefully for the next two years because that’s what her life depends on. Supposedly, a dialogue which he utters like every father. June even ridicules about it till the end. The family chemistry is unique with a strict mother and a not so strict father. As much as it looks like a template love story, it is not.

On the first day she meets a guy, Noel (Sarjano Khalid) whom she instantly falls for. All the girls get a variety of response from the guys. In fact, everyone one of them look good in their own way, even though my favorite would be Abhirami / Mottachi (Vaishnavi Venugopal). Even though she didn’t get much of a screen space initially she appears in the film at a latter stage. The school chapter starts with everyone introducing themselves. A sweet teacher introducing herself by whistling and a Muslim girl making a ramp walk and all were so cheesy which gave me inhibition thinking whether the movie is going to be this shallow but thankfully that’s the shallowest part of the whole movie. Things are more mature post that.

She gets into a relationship with Noel which she breaks up later as she’s caught by her parents while roaming along with guys. It’s a cute scene at the start of it where Noel sternly asks her to get into a car. That’s when he calls her his girlfriend openly and she likes him being possessive about her, something usual and lovely at that age. The breakup scene, even though a cliched one, was done well thanks to Rajisha Vijayana acting prowess. Even though we like her in the school episode, we get to know how good an actor she is, as the movie progresses.

Around half time she enters college and we watch it with high expectations but nothing much happens there. She again goes in pursuit of Noel, much to our annoyance. They hit it up again which leads to second break up, this time from Noel’s side, because his dad isn’t too keen on it. That scene and the breakup sequence post that is the only bad scene of the movie. When we feel what June did is right when she breaks up initially, doesn’t happen so when Noel breaks up. The scene should have been built in such a way that there is a dilemma and Noel chose the practical option. Instead it was straightforward scene showcasing Noel as a villain. Which he doesn’t deserve, because he too is a young kid who doesn’t have much maturity in life.

In the next short yet cute phase, we know what really happened during her college days. The government school boy, Anand (Arjun Ashokan), the only person who sighted her apart from me, gets to drop her home at that time. June hearing him out in the bus with sly smiles can make any man go weak on his knees. My partner and I were constantly commenting to each other about how cute she was. But that too breaks up. Editing too has to be appreciated here, which was lovely, with ‘Premam’ cuts which goes here and there. When June grows of age, she looks the same with different make up but the men differ drastically in looks. Also, both Sarjano Khalid and Arjun Ashokan show how good an actors they are because when we see them all grown up, it immediately reminds us of how they looked and acted during the school episode, where they were really naïve and innocent.

Even though there were a lot of nostalgic moments throughout the film, the film gave me lump on my throat during the climax. Even though an expected sequence, it was shot beautifully where we get to feel about the entire episode of June’s life. What’s beautiful about June is how she deals with life, how she goes easy on herself. It’s not a Kareena Kapoorish, “I’m my favorite person”, gig but a truly heartfelt love that one has to have on themselves. Even though I had watched ‘Gantumoote’ which revolves around a school theme, at no point I got reminded of it because the feel is entirely different. It couldn’t beat the ‘Gantumoote’ experience for me but still ‘June’ is nothing short of spectacle. Lots of love to you, June!