Movie Review – Maheshinte Prathikaaram

Not to the perfect size?

This movie was one of my long hauled overdue and somehow escaped my radar all this while. Considered to be the finest of Fahadh Faasil and start of a new era by Dileesh Pothan and Syam Pushkaran. Unfortunately as I had watched and blown away by ‘Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum’, as a non malayalee who doesn’t understand the meaning of the words, even by the rhyme of it, ‘Maheshinte Prathikaaram’ was a little underwhelming. I guess both of it together would work as a dual feature, not like that or Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, but something like that of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’. The feeling was similar to how it felt after watching ‘Mr. Smith goes to Washington’ after being blown away by ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

The initial vibe of the film was terrific, the elongation of the word “pennu” and the sudden halt while saying “Idukki” in the titular song would give smiles to anyone settling in theatre. It’d have given a proper settling of rustling leaves vibes when you had seen people enter the theatre and you’re already in your dreamland. I thought it was going to be one happy film seeing that song sequence but it was entirely not so.

Mahesh (Fahadh Faasil) is a normal guy, in writer Sujatha’s words, a satharanan, one who has lived his life in peace in a small town, known by his friends and hated by none. He’s neither skillful nor terrible. He lives his life as if he’s not even in the frame. He loves a girl who too has affection on him but it doesn’t materialize for obvious reasons, the reason not explained in the movie but it felt like an eventual. This breakup felt harsher and realistic than Fahadh Faasil’s highly acclaimed but terribly boring ‘Annayum Rasoolum’. He doesn’t grimace in pain, may be part of him too knew that it was not going to happen. There isn’t any bitching, thankfully. Furthermore, post her marriage we don’t see her suffer. There were mild cues in the movie where the groom was shown as a possessive man, but thankfully being a positive non melodramatic movie we don’t see her suffering even though a part of us who sympathize with Mahesh would want that.

Due a sequence of events, a Butterfly Effect may be, we see Mahesh getting into a fight and getting beaten up and he swears that he wouldn’t wear a chappal until he avenges his man. While we think that the movie was going to get into a serious tone, the man who beat him up goes to Dubai. It was a terrific interval. It’d have been great if the movie had just ended there. The second half felt obvious. A girl who’s a sister of that man, Mahesh avenging him and asking for the girl, felt a little bit preposterous. The punch that he had expected while the directors name flashes on screen actually happens during the interval block.

As much as one would want to appreciate Fahadh Faasil, not just him but everyone could be appreciated in the same vein. There wasn’t a single badly acted scene in the whole movie. Everyone did their role to perfection. Even Mahesh’s Kung Fu colleague who beats up the auto driver. The climax fight gets us on the hook but isn’t it a film which is greater than this to have our emotions ridden in such a straight forward scene.

There was a part where Mahesh’s dad asks him not to call his studio as shop. There was a slight “coming of age” touch there but it wasn’t overdone and didn’t drift the film in some other direction. But it’s something which could’ve even be taken off and the film would have still worked fine and his character would have felt earthier. For some reason I was constantly getting ‘C/o Kancharapalem’ vibes which made me feel that this film as a less great one among the two.

As I said before, this movie would have worked better if I had seen it first and seen it with less disturbance. It’s not a movie for pause and play, in fact no movie is. But as it plays around with the feelings and emotions more than the story, a strong settling time would be appreciated.

Movie Review – 22 Female Kottayam

Surprisingly good but expectedly not so good

It was one of the movies which I don’t know how it ended up in my list and for some reason I was very disinterested too, so watched it hastily. But quite surprisingly, it was an interesting watch. The movie was quick to grip. The typical feel goodness of Malayalam film was there to be seen in the first act and that’s the best part. The way their love casually blossoms, the not so meaningful scenes and all those niceties were superb, just when I thought I was going to settle it for a surprise feel good movie, the typical Fahad psycho mode started and movie got out of place…

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The movie begins with Tessa (Rima Kallingal) escaping from someone’s clutches where she phones and thanks him. It then shifts to flashback mode where we see her try to go out of the country. She meets Cyril (Fahadh Faasil) from the travel consultancy agency and they both fall in love with each other. It was a cute love story till then and Fahadh Faasil was excellent in that. Plus, there was no sign of any doubt in their relationship. It felt as organic and natural as it could be. Even the introduction of Hegde (Prathap Pothen) and all of them being together was as natural as it could be.

The first twist was when Hegde asks Tessa whether he can have sex with her. Generally, Prathap Pothen is really good in psychic characters but he wasn’t as menacing as he would generally be.  At that point we’d be thinking of how Cyril would take revenge on him but the second twist happens when he too becomes psycho. Even though the first act was best, the way the movie transforms too was nice, even though I didn’t like the idea, the execution was good but it’s the part post that which was entirely a debacle.

The jail scenes in the second half was a total let down. What should have been a hard-hitting passage of time was let down by poor story which looked like yesteryear antics. That part had an uncanny resemble to ‘Ek Hasina Thi’, wonder whether there could be so much coincidence. Thinking about the film now, the entire story feels like it, just that the first act was lovely here. The jail part was the best one in ‘Ek Hasina Thi’ and that’s the reason why the film worked. Whereas it’s the opposite here.

She comes out and takes revenge. That was of no surprise but I loved her collaboration with DK (Sathaar). That was a lovely character who looks flirty and villainous in the first half but becomes a hero of sorts in the second. Also, I loved his concept of love. Though he has multiple affairs he doesn’t cheat any. May be even his wife knows about it and approves. And he’s someone who never shies away from mentioning about his wife, to which no muses of him get irritated. It was a welcome change from typical ‘minor kunju’ types in Tamil cinema.

The revenge scene with Cyril was inevitable but wish we could have seen more resistance from him. Also, as per Wikipedia, she tries to woo him by being a typical “femme fatale”. Seriously? She looked hardly any different. The final dialogues between Cyril and Tessa were nice with Fahadh Faasil taking the onus. Good that the movie doesn’t end with Tessa killing him. It would have been mundane. Plus, she even after doing penectomies, has a little bit of sympathy on him and he has more agony on her. He challenges her and she still looks weak somewhere. That passage of play was nice to watch. May be with a better actress, it would have been nicer.

Movie Review – Iyobinte Pusthakam

Visual retreat

For anyone who had read Brothers Karamzov, this movie would be a treat. Not in my wildest imagination did I think that a Dostoevsky novel would be adapted this good. May be it’s not really an adaptation and has only few elements from the novel, it still passes down as one of the best ever movies made which employed the visual storytelling technique to a great extent. Best thing about the movie is even if you know none about it, it’s still appealing. A movie made on grand scale which has an impact like that of ‘There will be Blood’ is not something which comes quite often in Indian cinema.

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Grandeur is what happens in ‘Iyobinte Pusthakam’, not the seven wonders in Shankar song. ‘Iyobinte Pusthakam’ spells grandeur in each and every frame. With an excellent cast, topping with Fahadh Faasil, there is never a dull moment in the film. It’s good to see a maker making movies in such vast canvas and succeeding in it too. People mostly associate big budget movies with that of action adventure or epic movies or may be even war movies. But period flicks are never given its due when it comes to budgeting. In fact, of all, the eye pleasing stuff happens more in period flicks than the remaining. Just look at the cars in the film. It was such a treat to watch them in slow motion.

The only problem I had in the movie was the way it opened. With a voice over narrating too many stories, it was a tedious watch. But maybe they wanted it to be Dostoevskian too. Even though a lot of details were infused, the film still holds our attention. Just in those few minutes, there is a superb graph for Iyob (Lal). Someway the feel of a Dostoevsky novel gets into us and we start to follow the film curiously.

Fahadh Faasil takes his own sweet time to enter the screen and once he does, he’s ravishing. Ivan (Jinu Joseph) and Dimitri (Chemban Vinod Jose) too are excellent as his brothers. Especially Jinu Joseph who looks like a WWE star. Bray Wyatt to be precise. He carries on the charisma like a wrestler and was a pure evil faced person. It’s good to see such characters nowadays in cinema, where all we see is grey and boring.

The film is rightly titled ‘Iyobinte Pusthakam’ because even though Aloshy (Fahadh Faasil) is the hero, it’s still a film about Iyob. He’s the one who comes to power, then goes powerless and there is a proper character arc in his story, both through self-realization as well as from the outside. That’s why it makes for a great character. Except for him, most of the others are straight forward characters. Rahel (Padmapriya Janakiraman) is another interesting character who deals with a lot of men. A truly vicious character who manipulates men till her death. I thought Padmapriya was a wrong choice but she did really well.

Kazali (Lena) and Martha’s (Isha Sharvani) character too was well written and superbly shot. Kazali was given a great Indian make up and Martha had a halo around her face. Her presence meant angelic divinity in the frames. Isha Sharvani’s casting was a master stroke because she has this weird goddess daughter face which works for the movie.

It’s good to see Malayalam cinema trying out new stuffs rather than doing the same things again and again. And this was one movie where the experiment worked wonderfully for me. So it was a double joy of watching something new as well as watching something solid. It truly was a mesmerizing watch.