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Release date:
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Kerala: May 19, 2017. Delhi: May 26, 2017.
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Director:
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Basil Joseph
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Cast:
Language:
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Tovino Thomas,
Renji Panicker, Wamiqa Gabbi, Aju Varghese, Parvathy
Malayalam
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A village
playground in Kerala was director Ranjan Pramod’s playing field in the sweetly
evocative Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu released this April. The action shifts to a mud wrestling pit in small-town
Kerala in Basil Joseph’s Godha
starring Renji Panicker as a veteran gatta gusthi coach whose sport is losing to
cricket in the popular psyche.
Captain, as
Panicker’s character is called, is struggling not just with growing
indifference within the community, but within his home too. His own son Das
(Tovino Thomas) was a promising wrestler but gave it up. Dad sends the boy off
to Punjab for higher studies, where he meets ace wrestler Aditi Singh
(endearingly spelt “Adithi” in the English subtitles, as most Malayalis would).
Aditi is played by Wamiqa Gabbi. Through a series of circumstances, the two end
up back in Das’ village where each goes through a coming-of-age journey.
The most telling
moment in Godha comes when the
embattled heroine, who is being bullied by her family to give up her passion in favour of marriage, tells the hero: “Nobody wants a Sakshi Malik in
their own house until and unless she wins an Olympic medal.” It is a remark
that ought to shake us up and shame us, considering that we come from a society
where successful women are often toasted by people who do not acknowledge the
discrimination against women in their own homes. Unfortunately, the screenplay
never rises above its many promising parts. What should have been a powerful
sports film remains pleasant and entertaining throughout, but fails to be the
gripping, compelling saga it could have been.
The concept is
brimming with potentially explosive elements: a young south Indian man moving
to north India for an education and a young north Indian woman heading off to
the south to escape oppression, in a nation where the north-south divide is far
deeper than we would like to admit; gender bias; politics in sports...each is
touched upon in an interesting fashion at first. As the movie moves on though,
charming as it is in so many ways, it becomes evident that it lacks heft.
Comparisons with
Aamir Khan’s Dangal are inevitable,
although that was a non-Malayalam film, because it too dealt with women in wrestling
and it captured the imagination of audiences outside the Hindi belt too.
Unfortunately for Godha, although
Basil Joseph appears to be a confident director, the film’s screenplay needed to be much more than what it is. For
instance, Aditi’s battles with her family’s conservatism and in the wrestling
arena are too easily won. Das’ self-discovery is not explored with any depth
once his father takes the girl under his wing. And Captain too remains more an
idea than a fully fleshed out person.
It is largely a
measure of the natural charisma of all three artistes and the supporting cast
that they manage to keep the narrative engaging despite the shortcomings in the
writing. Thomas – fresh from the recent success of Oru Mexican Aparatha – is likeable here. He must also be
complimented on the well-chiselled physique he reveals (without the camera
making a song and dance of it) when we see him wrestling. Gabbi is luminous,
but what is far more striking is the way she gets the body and body language of
a wrestler right. Panicker infuses warmth into the proceedings in a way only he
can. And Aju Varghese as Das’ friend is a hoot, as he always is (barring a couple of instances of
creepy behaviour by the character, which are presented as comedy).
It is particularly
good to see the way Hindi, Punjabi and English are used by the dialogue writer,
and the way languages flow in conversations in Godha as they would in real life if an open-minded north Indian
were to travel to Kerala. The Malayalis in the film are shown trying to
communicate as best as they can with her in the languages she knows, and after
she spends some time in Kerala, she reciprocates the effort with Malayalam.
This, along with
the strength of the assembled cast, the convincing realistic tone and the
humour in the interactions between the characters keep this film going. If the
script had half as much muscle as the average wrestler’s body, Godha could have been something special.
As it is, Basil Joseph’s film stops at being nice. He is obviously a director
with promise, so hopefully in his next venture he will pay more attention to
the writing department (which, in any case, is the cornerstone of any good film)
before assembling other impressive parts. Here’s looking at you, Mr Joseph!
Rating
(out of five stars): **1/4
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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120 minutes
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This
review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godha_(film)
