Thursday, September 23, 2010

Nandanam

It’s a simple story. Balamani (Navya Nair) is a hired help in the rich household of Unni Amma who lives with three other old women who supposedly take care of her in the temple town of Guruvayur. Balamani ends up doing all the work but she is very effervescent and good natured and Unni Amma treats her like her own daughter. Balamani believes in Lord Guruvayur strongly and lights a lamp everyday though for some reason she doesn’t get to go to the temple. One night she dreams of her wedding and sees an unknown man as her groom. Next day Manu (Prithviraj), Unni amma’s grandson comes to stay with her for two weeks before leaving for US. Balamani is surprised to see that Manu is the man who came in her dreams.
Balamani and Manu come closer and Manu wants to marry her. Meanwhile Manu’s mother Thangam (Revathi) fixes his marriage with some other girl whose family resides in US. By the time Manu is able to tell his mother the truth it is too late and he is unable to say no to her.

Meanwhile Balamani is heartbroken but she can’t even leave the house as she owes Unni amma some money. One day she is contemplating jumping into a well when a young man stops her. She thinks he is Unni, the son of her neighbor who is visiting her. The two become friends and Unni who is always cheerful gives hope to Balamani. He believes that she will finally end up marrying Manu in spite of all obstacles.

Unni’s words bear fruit. On the eve of the marriage, the bride elopes with someone else. Though the family tries very hard to get Manu married to his cousin, that too doesn’t succeed. Finally in spite of brooding family members Unni Amma gets the two married. Balamani goes to her neighbor’s house to give the good news to Unni but discovers that he is not the guy she met in the woods. Balamani and Manu go to the temple to get the God’s blessings but are unable to enter as it is cordoned off for some VIP’s visit. Outside the temple Balamani catches the glimpse of her friend unni and realizes that Lord Guruvayur himself came to help her.

A simple and old tale with devotional background coupled with a pace which reflects the old times, could have made the movie uninteresting. But it doesn’t - the reason being Navya Nair, she has played this innocent, sweet, full of life, simple girl who steals your heart from the first scene. Prithviraj also plays his role of a young city boy who has fallen in love with a village belle to perfection.

The movie is slow paced but stills keeps you interested and the story moves forward fairly quickly. Renjith has done a brilliant job in capturing the life as it exists in the small towns. Though the scenes with Kumbidi (Jagathy Sreekumar) intended to bring some humor are dead and unnecessary.

Superb acting especially by Navya Nair, Commendable direction.

(Do watch)

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Lollipop

I had picked up this movie for the actors especially Prithviraj and Roma who had amazing chemistry Chocolate.

The movie begins with Panji (Jayasurya) telling his story to another man while waiting for the ferry. Panji was a small time pick pocket committing petty crimes. One day he tried to steal Franco’s (Prithviraj) bag and gets beaten by him. Unfortunately both of them are caught by the police and later released on the insistence of a local priest who is also Franco’s godfather. Panji follows the priest and Franco and is ultimately given work in Franco’s garage so that he can mend his ways. Franco lives with his sister Jenifer (Roma) who is a tomboy. Their parents are no more. He is over protective of his sister and picks up fights with anyone who upsets her. One such person is Rose (Bhavana) who studies with Jeni who for some reason hates Rose. Though at the face of it Franco scolds Rose for picking a fight with Jeni, actually they are in love. They cannot acknowledge their love openly as Franco and Jeni have a pact that each will marry the person of other’s choice so that they can always live peacefully under one roof.

Meanwhile Panji falls in love with Jeni who is oblivious to his affections. Jeni ends up meeting a doctor, Dr. Aby (Kunchacko Boban) and the two like each other instantly. When Franco sees Dr. Aby, he instantly rejects him for some reason. As a result Jeni also breaks her association with him. Dr. Aby and Rose are coincidentally neighbors who parents are constantly fighting with each other.

One day Franco ends up beating a SP who was rude to Jeni, unaware of his actual identity. Hearing this Rose comes to tell him of the consequences when Jeni sees them. Brother and sister are about to have an altercation when the SP comes and arrests them. The local priest again comes to their rescue. Jeni is extremely upset with Franco who realizes his mistake and breaks up Rose. A little later Jeni realizes her mistake and talks to Rose and tells her to call Franco. Meanwhile we see Franco at a mental hospital meeting his mother who is in a very bad shape. He meets Dr. Aby there and acknowledges that he was the one who told Jeni to break up with Aby. He admits that the lady is only Jeni’s mom and in reality Jeni is not related to Franco. Franco found her on the road one day when she was a child and took care of her like a sister as her mom was not in well. Jeni knows nothing about it and he thought if she got together with Aby she will learn the truth which might upset her. Aby acknowledges Franco and promises never to reveal the truth. Meanwhile Rose calls up Franco to tell him about Jeni’s acceptance of their relation. Thus Franco and Rose; and Jeni and Aby get together and their parents throw a big party on their engagement.

Meanwhile Panji is heartbroken and is determined to marry Jeni. He creates a misunderstanding between Franco, Jeni and Rose and Aby where Franco and Jeni suspect them of having an affair and break off the engagement. After a while Franco unaware of Panji’s true nature gets Jeni and Panji engaged. Police catches an associate of Panji who confesses to everything, just in time before the wedding. In a fight Panji is killed and everyone gets back together and lives happily ever after.

Movie starts on a comical note and seems to have potential. But after an hour of running time, gets absolutely entangled and looses the plot completely. I actually couldn’t sit through the movie and fast forwarded the songs and fight sequences.

Shafi is extremely disappointing and the movie is a complete waste of time. Prithviraj is disappointing, Roma is her usual bubbly self and the rest of the actors are wasted.

(Do skip)

Friday, September 3, 2010

Rithu (Seasons)

One of my very first movies which captures the angst and aimlessness of the modern youth…not the rebel, doped out, high on everything kind…not the pseudo intellectual spouting Nietzsche and Kafka at the drop of a hat but the garden variety yuppie working in the IT city, travelling on projects to US, caught between the old and new…

And the director has done a fantastic job with it. A movie with which I can surely say 99% of my colleagues will relate to. And yet it’s not a run of the mill movie. It explores the basic believes and fundamentals of our lives, of parents forcing their children to become software engineers, of an entire generation forgetting how to think, how to feel, of the futility of the rat race we all have become a part of.


The movie begins with Sarat coming back from US after a stint of three years to his hometown in Kerala. He calls his two childhood friends Sunny and Varsha, both working in Bangalore, to come and join him to work for a start up. Together they form the core team of the company. Sarat is the team leader and popular for his stay in Silicon Valley. Sarat who still considers Sunny and Varsha as his closest friend thinks that the camaraderie between them is same as before. But Sunny and Varsha have moved on with their lives of which Sarat is no longer a part of.

Sarat is also a son of a famous writer who used to translate Bengali novels. Sarat too wanted to pursue literature but under pressure from his father had to do engineering and move to USA. You still feel the lingering tension when he interacts with his father.

Overtime Sarat realizes that though he and Varsha were seeing each other before he left, she is now with someone else. Also Sunny harbors a lot of ill will against Sarat for not helping him with his visa. A colleague, tips of Sarat that Sunny is trying to steal the software code they are working on and sell it.

Meanwhile Sarat’s dad passes away and the circumstances especially his disillusion with the rat race and the futility of his life, force him to do a lot of introspection. He ultimately leaves his job to pursue a career in writing. How his friendship with Varsha and Sunny morphs like changing seasons is the highlight of the film.

Shyamaprasad’s direction and Joshua Newton’s screenplay have come together beautifully to make the movie extremely realistic yet entertaining. There are melancholic undertones to the movie but what amazed me most is the cast. The three newcomers Nishan, Rima and Asif Ali have played their characters to perfection. The director has kept true to each of the three characters till the end.

A movie that will resonate with many in urban India.

(Do watch)

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Thanmathra (Molecule)

Finally a Blessy movie which makes some sense...

After having watched Bhramaran and Calcutta news, I had lost faith in his direction but Thanmathra proves that it’s not a lose cause yet. The movie begins with the life of a simple man Ramesan Nair (Mohanlal). He lives with his wife Lekha (Meera Vaasudevan), son Manu (Arjun Lal) and daughter. He works at the secretariat. His aim is to make sure that his son becomes an IAS officer. He is absolutely involved in bringing up his kids, teaching them and is himself has a very gifted memory and even lectures at his son’s school on memory techniques.

His is a small and perfect family.


The first anomaly we see is when at his hometown he forgets the nickname of a childhood friend. Not much later he forgets the lyrics of one of his favorite songs. This really frustrates him and he rushes out of a bath without drying himself when he remembers the lyrics. Slowly after that his life starts unraveling and he forgets an important file in the freezer. He even goes to the doctor who initially attributes his forgetfulness to the stress caused due to his son being in class XII.

But then he turns up at office one day with vegetables and behaves as if he is at home. Soon the situation gets out of hand and his good friend Joseph takes him to the hospital. His father (Nedumudi Venu) also comes from the village. The doctor informs the family that Ramesh is suffering from Alzheimer’s and the family needs to be prepared for it. Throughout this the son Manu behaves very maturely and handles the entire crisis.

Ramesh’s father decides to move the family back to the ancestral home so that they can take care of Ramesh. Thereon we see slowly the degeneration of Ramesh while his family watches.

The movie is well directed especially because it tackles an issue like Alzheimer’s very sensitively. While watching the movie, initially I felt that the director is rambling aimlessly but after he starts showing the effects of memory loss on Ramesh you realize the importance of the initial background the director gave. In my personal opinion the technique of moving between past and present that Blessy later used in Bhramaran could have made this film a little crisp. Nevertheless he successfully tells the story of Ramesh in a very poignant manner.

What disappointed me in this movie are the performances. The fundamental reason for that could be that the actors and the director might not have done their background research in actually studying a patient of Alzheimer’s. To understand the nuances of their behavior, to see how the disease reduces a person to a vegetable, you actually have to spend some time with a person suffering from it and with the family taking care of the patient. But our Indian actors are above all this. They can just wake up and play any character. As a result Mohanlal’s performance is melodramatic and all Meera Vasudevan does on the screen is cry. Arjun Lal, looks extremely unnatural as the dutiful son.

The film has its moments but falls short of expectations.

(Can Skip)

Moving On

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