Gramaphone

I recently saw this Malayalam movie starring Dileep, Meera Jasmine and Navya Nair. Sachi (Dileep) is the son of a great singer who is no more. Burdened by a legacy he never cared to inherit Sachi juggles between multiple jobs to make ends meet for his family. In addition he also takes care of his father’s friends who were a part of his orchestra. They are all friends with Jenny, a local Jew and one of the few families still living in Cochin. Jenny’s father wants her to marry a boy who will take all of them back to Israel. Jenny and Sachi like each other but are too stuck in their worlds to be able do something about it.

Pooja (Navya Nair) is the daughter of a singer whose importance in the movie I never really understood. Pooja becomes good friends with Jenny when she starts working at the same hotel Jenny works. Meanwhile there’s Jenny's Aunt Sarah (Revathy) who refuses to leave the room she has shut herself in. Though never explicitly mentioned we get to learn that Sarah was in love with Sachi’s father, the singer, but for her dad’s insistence on marrying a Jew, who could take them to Israel, could never get together with Sachi’s dad.

Another angle in the story is that though Sachi is a brilliant singer and musician, he refuses to acknowledge it because he believes that all musicians are corrupt and base.

So as you can already see there are too many angles in the movie. I don't quite understand the story that the director wants to tell. The thing in having too many characters is that you have to bring all of their stories, however unique or mundane, to a logical conclusion. And add to it they should all connect somehow. This is where the script writer and director fail miserably. The movie is all over the place.

I don’t think that whatever the actors did could have salvaged the movie.

(Can Skip)