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Release
date:
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Kerala: July 12, 2019
Delhi: July 26,
2019
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Director:
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G. Prajith
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Cast:
Language:
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Biju Menon,
Samvrutha Sunil, Alencier Ley Lopez, Saiju Kurup, Dinesh Prabhakar, Sudhi
Koppa, Srikanth Murali, Sumangal Singha Roy, Sruthy Jayan, Musthafa, Bhagath Manuel
Malayalam
|
Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? (Will you believe me if I
tell you the truth?) places a cover-up at the centre of a slice-of-life saga
steeped in alcohol and amorality. The setting is small-town Kerala where Suni
(Biju Menon) and his gang of buddies work as masons and swill alcohol in every
spare moment. Suni is married to Geetha (Samvrutha Sunil) with whom he has a
daughter. As he depletes his savings and his limited social standing with his
perennial drunkenness, his lack of responsibility begins to erode their
relationship.
Like scores of
heroes before him in Malayalam cinema, like Siby Sebastian in Venu’s Carbon and P.R. Akash in Sathyan Anthikad’s Njan Prakashan just last
year, it seems not to occur to Suni that a straight path is one of life's
options. He also just does not see that he is responsible for his dire
circumstances, and salvation will come with his own choices.
A dramatic turn of
events offers Suni and his friends that lifeboat they have been hoping would “save
them” even as they have chosen to drown themselves in a river of booze. Up to
that point and thereafter, what makes Sathyam
Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? different from many other
Malayalam films with similar male protagonists is that it does not romanticise
these men and their self-destructive ways. They may themselves view their
alcohol obsession as normal, but the film does not, as is evident from the hell
they put themselves through and the hero's decisions in the denouement. The
messaging comes couched in hilarious, believable scenes woven together so
finely, imbued so deeply with cultural insights and narrated so realistically
that they feel like a close friend's video on a real-life Suni rather than a
fiction feature.
None of this should
be a surprise considering that Sathyam
Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? is directed by G. Prajith
who earlier made Oru Vadakkan Selfie
(2015) and is written by Sajeev Pazhoor who wrote the smashing Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum
(2017). There are some thematic and plot borrowings from both – a laggard’s
get-rich-quick fantasy, an elopement defying parental opposition, a theft – but
this film is unlike either of those two. For one, Suni and Geetha’s
financial condition is truly pathetic. For another, in terms of visual scale, Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? is a smaller film. And that is not all.
The film’s sense of
humour, realism and observant socio-political eye are its primary selling
points. Its cast is another. Making a comeback to acting after a post-marriage
hiatus, Samvrutha Sunil delivers a wistful performance that explains fan
nostalgia for her. She gets less screen time than the men but leaves her
imprint on every scene featuring her Geetha.
Biju Menon was born
to play men like Suni. By now he probably knows the happy-go-lucky chappie with
crackpot plans like the back of his hands, but he lends a degree of pathos to
Suni that sets this
man apart from the other characters he has played in recent
years.
The supporting cast
is top notch. A word here for Sudhi Koppa who spends most of Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? lying about and
being sloshed, yet owns the film with that one amusing scene in which his
long-term friends first discover his official name. Sruthy Jayan as the
tellingly nicknamed Highway Jessy and the forever-dependable Saiju Kurup as a
creep pretending to be a nice guy are both impactful.
For the most part
then, Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? is entertaining,
engrossing and intelligent. The satellite track about two sets of rival local
politicians is neither
intelligible nor absorbing, but it is not long
enough to mar the rest of the proceedings.
The one cliché in
this film comes when it romanticises the unswervingly loyal wife of an ass who
has squandered away their comforts, and sort of villainises her brothers
who offer her an escape from this marriage. Suni is likeable almost entirely
because he is played by the charming Biju Menon, and nothing in the writing of
this character explains why he has earned the stable, level-headed Geetha’s
attention, attraction or affection, an affection so deep that she was not
swayed by the massive class divide between them and turned her back on the
father she loved to be with him. This guy is a liar, a thief and a wastrel. He
does nothing to deserve her devotion. The onset of their married life and
moments of quiet domesticity play out over a song. We are given barely any
insight into the depth of their relationship. No scintillating conversations.
No glimpses of a shared worldview. We are simply expected to accept that she
fell in love with him and continues to love him because Sajeev Pazhoor says so.
Where Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? does get
adventurous is with the inclusion of the character played by Assamese actor Sumangal Singha Roy in Suni’s group at one point. Migrant workers from eastern
and north eastern India are usually airily clubbed together as “Bangali” and
treated as an aside in Malayalam cinema (as they are in Kerala society), rarely given the respect that was accorded to them in Njan Prakashan. Here though, Roy is shown
as part of a local Malayali family. He also speaks only in
Malayalam. This makes him a dual surprise. First, because the othering and/or
marginal presence of the so-called “Bangali” is the Mollywood norm, whereas
this film is inclusive. Second, because non-Malayali, non-southerners are
rarely if ever shown speaking Malayalam in Malayalam films – they are usually
shown speaking Hindi. While this by and large mirrors the twin realities that Hindi bhaashis – who are a
politically dominant group in India – tend to expect
those outside their region too to know Hindi
and additionally that Hindi has spread outside the Hindi belt due to this among
other reasons, it is also a reflection of what seems to be the average Malayali’s
(possibly sub-conscious) inferiority complex about Malayalam that leads to a
self-defeating assumption that no non-Malayali would know or care enough to
speak Malayalam – some people do, let us represent them too in stories. Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? does, and what a breath of fresh air it is.
Particularly
because it does something so different in this matter, the throwaway line about
Hindi in the closing scene is inexplicable. Coming as it does in a film that
otherwise knows how to be comical without being casual, this fleeting
mindlessness is irritating.
One of the most
precious moments in terms of a larger social comment in Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? comes in a mob scenario
during which humans swarm like insects and vultures over an accident site.
It is a scene designed to evoke revulsion for those creatures as they shrug off
every shred of their dignity and let greed take over their beings. What really
works here is that they are not merely brushed aside as unidentifiable masses.
Cinematographer Shehnad Jalal’s camera, which had pulled back to give us a long
shot of the crowd, then closes in on one of them, a self-righteous member of
the community who turns out to be no better than the rest. (This is one of the few scenes in which Jalal does anything close to being grand in Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? – for the most part his work in the film remains compact
and unassuming.)
Sathyam Paranja Vishwasikkuvo? has a lot to say. It is
also a real hoot.
Rating (out
of five stars): ***
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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130 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
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