While we’ve ranted about misogyny in so many older Malayalam movies, these newer movies show how refreshing, entertaining movies can be made realistically, without contrived machismo.Ību6246: don’t you think over here that a serious subject has been treated lightly.Īnd I think that is EXACTLY why this film works. I feel so much respect and affection towards Nivin Pauly for playing his character in this way.
It’s about using your clout to get a certain kind of movie made.
I am so glad the jokes were not lost in translation.īut like Fahadh Faasil in Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, he puts himself in service of the story. This definition of star power we find only in the young stars of Malayalam cinema. Even the death scene in the movie had us clutching our sides. But we had seen it on the day of release with no expectations and were bowled over. One of my friends found the jokes and situations contrived and strained at times. The strain of sculpting each scene differently does show sometimes - not all the punches land - but I am not going to hold ambition against a filmmaker who gets so much so right A video recording of you during the movie will show you smiling a lot. The tone isn’t haha (though there are many laugh-out-loud moments).
We do get scenes in hospitals and scenes featuring the dismaying after-effects of treatment, but the defining mood is that of the stretch where a doctor (Saiju Kurup) is asked to please leave the office - his own office - so the family gathered there can sort things out. He takes a scary disease, the fount of a thousand on-screen tragedies, and makes a film that’s - there’s no other word for it - wholesome. That’s the film in a nutshell, and director Althaf Salim’s achievement is in not crossing the boundaries of good taste. The setting appears one of great poignancy, but Yesudasan says: “At this rate, you’ll set fire to not just the candle but Jesus, His beard and the lamb by His side.” Instead of a solo violin, we get a whoopee cushion. His hand wobbles, unable to land on the wick. One day, during prayer, he attempts to light a candle in front of a statuette of Jesus in his room. (He wants to invite Rose for a party, and she’s been dead twenty years.) He needs constant supervision, which is done in turns by the family and, later, by a male nurse named Yesudasan (Sharafudheen).
Read the full review on Film Companion, here: Ĭonsider the eighty-year-old patriarch (KL Anthony) of the Chacko clan in Njandukalude Nattil Oridavela (An Interval in the Land of Crabs).