Too sweet to handle
Known more famously as Nazriya’s come back film. It’s a film which is all about Nazriya’s cuteness and nothing else. A film which looked as if it’s made for her, may be quite desperately. Being a Prithviraj fan, even for me his acting looked very limited in the film. Again, some other actor could have starred in this role but Anjali Menon mostly works with stars, which works for films like ‘Bangalore Days’ but here it takes a toll on us. It’s all stars and gloss but there is no impact.
Malayalam cinema is generally good with these feel goods. Even if we don’t like the film, they make films which we can’t hate. Like a ‘Sudani from Nigeria’ where nothing much happens but the feel keeps us glued. ‘Koode’ falls on those lines. The movie begins with a ‘Breaking Bad’ kind of opening where Joshua (Prithviraj Sukumaran) is seen working in a factory in Dubai. His work is mundane and hard, we could see it from his plain face. Once he receives a call, he heads back to home for an unfortunate event. The wide angle and top angle shots of bus around that juncture was lovely.
Once he’s back home, he grieves a bit for her sister and takes Jenny’s (Nazriya Nazim) ambulance to drive around where he spots her inside the van. The whole film revolves around how Jenny gives Joshua company and makes him come to terms with his life. Anyone who had seen ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ would instantly get reminded of the van as soon as they see it in this film. ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ is a sort of movie which doesn’t affect you much at first. Even when I watched it, I was quite laid back and casual but by the end, it left a profound impression on me. ‘Koode’ tries to match that level but here the things are more vocal, like a tea shop owner telling how a couple of hippies travelled the world around with the van and how it ended up in his dad’s place. When Joshua and Sophie (Parvathy Thiruvothu) get on the van in the climax, it should have given us that liberating feel, but it doesn’t. If it had not tried to dramatize the incident then its enough to have given internal happiness but it tries to mask that its not doing something dramatic so it fails in both the aspect.
In fact, Parvathy doesn’t have any role at all in the film. There’s an angle of her being verbally and sexually abused by her family, which could have been given a further screen space but Anjali wanted the film to be within the confines of a feel-good drama so doesn’t delve on that more. It works better in Prithviraj’s angle, where the hint of sexual abuse is subtle. But using the same template for both the stories is not such a good idea.
Other than that, it’s all about Nazriya, who generally is a bundle of charm but severely overdoes here. She was trying to impress so much with her charm, that it becomes irritating. May be an actor like Anna Ben would have known the correct level to light up the screen. At present she does these charming roles the best. We get to know about Jenny’s congenial disease right at the start, so there isn’t much surprise left. It’s a film which deals with the impact a normal person like Jenny had left behind rather than showing how charming she was. So, it’s a curious way to make a film which had to be treaded carefully. But being a normal person, this is the maximum impact she could leave. Her flashback too is pretty weak. May be Anjali wanted us to imagine the rest of it but it doesn’t spark the fire in us to really investigate
I guess the main culprit for me was Hotstar which claimed the film to be thriller. It’s drama at the most with the main emphasis on feel goodness. Around the climax, the college students saving Joshua and co, his father’s antics and Jenny’s disappearance bring a sort of thrill but that’s about it. In the end ‘Koode’ feels a like feel good film where the feel goodness doesn’t work.
constantscribbles 