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Release
date:
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Kerala: April 26,
2019
Delhi: May 3, 2019
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Director:
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Manu Ashokan
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Cast:
Language:
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Parvathy, Asif
Ali, Tovino Thomas, Siddique, Anarkali Marikar, Prem Prakash, Pratap K.
Pothen, Samyuktha Menon
Malayalam
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Chances are that
you know a woman like Pallavi Raveendran – full of beans, with a clear vision
for her professional career yet a puddle of misplaced devotion, fear and guilt
around the man she loves. Pallavi’s boyfriend Govind is a conservative control
freak. He wants to be not just her husband but also the boss of her time, her
wardrobe and her plans. Women like her are met with incredulity in the public
discourse around intimate partner violence a.k.a. domestic violence, because
most people find it hard to believe that someone so apparently strong could be
bulldozed by another human being.
Yet there are
Pallavis all around us – the actor with the world at her feet who initially
covered up the truth when her famous boyfriend physically abused her, the
millionaire pop superstar who took her boyfriend back after he was violent with
her, an efficient colleague using makeup to camouflage bruises from her
husband’s beatings.
Pallavi in Uyare (High) is on the way to becoming a
professional pilot when Govind’s possessiveness brims over. To punish her for
straining at the straitjacket in which he seeks to bind her, he throws acid on
her face.
That terrible
moment comes as a shock even though the promotions have prepared us by letting
it be widely known that Uyare is the
story of an acid-attack survivor piecing her life back together. The feeling of
shock arises despite there being not an atom of sensationalism in the scene,
because the narrative is designed to draw the viewer into Pallavi’s dreams and
hopes by then. I can speak for myself: I had begun to care.
An acid attack is
not a mere gimmick in debutant director Manu Ashokan’s hands. His sensitivity
is evident in the way the assault is not treated like a twist in a thriller
(the sound design in this portion is stupendous). His achievement lies in the
fact that Uyare is not a film about
Pallavi’s tragedy, but about her journey up to that point and thereafter.
Uyare has been written by the acclaimed team of Bobby
and Sanjay whose empathy for women shines through this soul-shattering yet
uplifting film. It is a stark departure from the refrain about all men as paavam victims of inevitably traitorous
women that is repeated in most Malayalam films. It is also a break from the
trivialisation of harassment by much of mainstream Mollywood. It raises no
slogans but its messaging is clear.
The story gives
Pallavi supporters not saviours. She shares a heartwarming friendship with
her classmate (Anarkali Marikar). And her equation with her new-found pal
Vishal Rajashekharan (Tovino Thomas) is stripped of the male messiah complex
prevalent in cinema worldwide, of the sort exemplified by that scene in the
otherwise progressive recent Hindi film Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga in which Sweety (Sonam Kapoor) tells Sahil (Rajkummar Rao) to find others like her in other towns
and “save them too”. In Uyare, no one
but Pallavi saves Pallavi.
Uyare’s Vishal needs her as much as she needs him. The
graph of their association overturns the global Disney Princess stereotype of
women finding their salvation via gallant knights in shining armour on white
horses, as it was overturned by Hollywood’s Maleficent
and Frozen or their tentative
precursor Pretty Woman in that final
scene in which Edward (Richard Gere) references a dream that Vivian (Julia
Roberts) earlier recounted to him and asks, “So
what happened after he (the prince in the dream) climbed up the tower and rescued her?” to which Vivian replies, “She rescues him right
back.”
While on the
subject of fairytales, Uyare’s only
missteps involve its far-fetched optimism about the likely fate of a woman like
Pallavi. The public reaction to her after she is disfigured is far kinder than
it would be in reality. In Uyare’s
sanitised world, the mean passenger who objects to her scarred face not being
veiled is a very rare exception. Certainly there is a lot of good out there,
but there is evil and selfishness too, the extent of which contradicts the
film’s rose-tinted take on humankind in these passages.
This utopian
worldview could still be excused, what cannot is the absurdity of two in-flight
dramas involving Pallavi. Without giving anything away let’s just say that
Pallavi’s reactions in both scenarios are believable, one of them a completely
human, spontaneously angry response and the other spurred by a major emergency,
(Spoiler alert) but her airline’s
subsequent leniency towards her and the national civil aviation authorities’
silence are not just improbable, they are downright ridiculous. (Spoiler alert ends)
It is difficult to understand why
Bobby and Sanjay authored such silly interludes in an otherwise intelligent,
credible storyline. In the rest of the film, they get not just the larger
picture right, but also the thoughtful, well-observed details with which they
pepper their screenplay. Like the manner in which they demonstrate the
psychological benefit of distance in an oppressive relationship. Or a man
blaming his own demanding career and neglectful parenting for his child’s
wayward ways instead of pointing fingers at the mother, as is the standard
practice. Or a judge allowing his ego to overrule humanity.
That this is a
thinking film is evidenced by the respect it shows its primary audience – that
is, the Malayalam-speaking Malayali based in Kerala – by embedding Malayalam
subtitles in the print for its occasional English and Hindi dialogues. This is
in addition to the overlay of English subs throughout.
Uyare sets up its story very well. It conjures up an
unnerving atmosphere right from the start as we are introduced to Pallavi’s
charms and Govind’s surly watchfulness. This is in no small measure due to the
film’s pale grey-blue-brown-black-and-white palette and low-key tenor. Though
the narrative could have done without that long romantic song before Pallavi
leaves Kerala for her flying academy in Mumbai, the mood is set.
It helps that
cinematographer Mukesh Muraleedharan approaches Pallavi with dignity, as he
does the other survivors in their brief appearance. At no point is his camera’s
gaze on them exploitative and calculated to titillate. The manner in which
Muraleedharan’s lens looks at Pallavi after she is injured is akin to a friend
who is determined not to divert his gaze yet also not to stare, who wants not
to be hurtful yet not to cause discomfort either.
Ashokan and the
writers could not have found a better cast or team of technicians to translate
their vision on screen.
Siddique is
beautifully restrained as a father struggling to hide his heartbreak from his
daughter. So is Prem Prakash playing Govind’s Dad. The scene of a confrontation
involving the two gentlemen
and Pallavi is written, directed and acted to near perfection.
Tovino Thomas plays
cute well, as we know from Mayaanadhi,
Godha and other films, but he also
knows how not to allow cute to spill over into cloying. The challenge for him
in Uyare is to make a somewhat
immature, needy, insecure character not irritating but loveable, and he strikes
a fine balance with Vishal.
The find of Uyare is Asif Ali. Though this young
actor has been around for a decade and is a star, I have rarely found him
remarkable. As Govind, however, he is exceptional. The easy thing would have
been to overact this character as an overtly repulsive fellow, instead Ali
makes us fear him. There is something volcanic about his Govind, as if lava is
simmering just below his skin and will pour out of his pores any moment.
At the centre of
this constellation of talents is a genius. Parvathy’s superpower is her ability
to mutate into the persons she plays, erasing all reminders of her bodily
presence in the character. This is not an actor in the role of a survivor, she
IS that survivor.
Uyare’s world-class prosthetics and make-up team
handles part of the physical after-effects of a corrosive substance being
thrown at Pallavi’s face, Parvathy takes care of the rest. Her body language is
transformative in an indefinable way, her emotions under-stated but profoundly
felt. When she briefly explodes with rage at a regressive suggestion made in
court, she barely raises her voice yet the force of her feelings is
palpable.
Parvathy and her
co-stars are a major reason why it is possible to look past the glitches in the
second half of Uyare. Manu Ashokan
and Bobby-Sanjay’s film is a searing portrait of an indestructible woman and a
fitting tribute to the resilience of the human spirit.
Rating (out
of five stars): ***1/2
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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125 minutes
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A version of this review has been published on Firstpost:
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