REVIEW 693: UYARE

Release date:	Kerala: April 26, 2019 Delhi: May 3, 2019
Director:	Manu Ashokan
Cast: Language:	Parvathy, Asif Ali, Tovino Thomas, Siddique, Anarkali Marikar, Prem Prakash, Pratap K. Pothen, Samyuktha Menon Malayalam

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	125 minutes

A version of this review has been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/uyare-movie-review-parvathys-genius-powers-a-heart-wrenching-acid-attack-saga-overriding-its-fairytale-elements-6571021.html

Posters courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/OfficialParvathy/

REVIEW 643: MANDHARAM

Release date:	October 5, 2018
Director:	Vijesh Vijay
Cast: Language:	Asif Ali, Jacob Gregory, Arjun Asokan, Vineet Vishwam, Varsha Bollamma, Anarkali Marikar, Megha Mathew  Malayalam

Asif Ali is earnest. There is no film yet that I have seen featuring him in which it feels like he takes his work for granted or his audience lightly. His sincerity and commitment are no compensation though for his choice of directors and scripts that has led to a string of boring films in recent years, films that wander about seemingly endlessly, not knowing where to go and when to stop, sometimes despite starting out with an interesting premise. 

Adventures of Omanakuttan, Sunday Holiday, Iblis, the list is long. Mandharam does not even have a novel concept. Characters and situations seen in this film have been featured in Malayalam cinema countless times before, but most recently – and energetically – in a blockbuster that caught the attention of audiences outside Kerala too. Whatever Premam’s follies may have been (among them, an immature hero without a graph and the humourisation of stalkerish behaviour) it still had in its favour Nivin Pauly’s charm, Sai Pallavi’s dynamism and one very striking female character, the unforgettable Malar played by the latter. Ali, dedicated though he is, ain’t no Pauly, and the women in Mandharam are superficially written, ordinarily acted, inexplicable, insipid creatures. What writer-director Vijesh Vijay’s Mandharam is then is a sort of Premam poorly rebooted. 

The film takes us through a couple of decades in Rajesh’s romantic odyssey and his long-running search for the meaning of the words “I love you” that he heard as a child from Mohanlal’s character in a film. First comes a pre-pubescent schoolboy crush. Next, the grown-up Rajesh (Asif Ali), now a student in an engineering college, struggles to communicate his feelings to Charu, whose indecision and hesitation to hurt her parents compound the hurdles in his path. Then he goes off on a long journey – literally – in search of himself. Then he finds himself in a reverse circumstance where he becomes the object of a woman’s affection before he notices her. Then...yawn...who cares? 

Between his romantic disappointments and confusions are sewn in snapshots from his life with his three close guy friends played by Jacob Gregory, Arjun Asokan and Vineet Vishwam. While interactions among this quartet do lead to occasional moments of amusement and believability, these are diluted by the overall lack of energy of the narrative and the normalised misogyny of some of their conversations such as when one of them laments being slapped by a girl he was pursuing despite her open expression of disinterest, to which a member of the gang replies that he should persist in his courtship – that she will relent being treated as an inevitability – and on their wedding night give the girl a tight slap as revenge. 

I do not doubt that men do indulge in such animosity in the real world, but the tone of endorsement in the narrative is what is off-putting here. Film after Malayalam film offers a window into the extreme gender segregation in Kerala society, but not enough of them take a critical view of this disturbing reality. Quite to the contrary, the othering of women and the male gaze on them is so complete in Mollywood that even little girls are routinely viewed as romantic partners to the hero’s child avatar – Mandharam continues the irritating trend.

Overall, the women in Mandharam get the worst of its unimaginative story by Vijesh Vijay himself and screenplay by M. Sajas. Anarkali Marikar’s character is dull, and Varsha Bollamma’s Charu is led by mysterious motivations inserted into the film purely, it appears, to provide some desperately needed conflict even if it makes no sense. Why, for instance, would a woman describe a man as “cheap” merely for expressing a desire to spend the rest of his life with her when, in the preceding scenes, they have been shown comfortably hanging out together and developing an equation of considerable warmth? That she may not reciprocate his feelings for her would be understandable, that she may point out to him that he misunderstood her friendliness too would be understandable, but “cheap”? Why, unless the writers are weighed down by the stereotypical notions that all women are teases, that it is impossible for a man to ever understand a woman, and that women say “no” and “maybe” when in fact they mean “yes”? 

The characterisation of the men too is inconsistent. Rajesh is projected as a nice guy throughout. He is that uncommon Malayalam hero whose response to heartbreak is not macho chest-thumping and talk of women’s traitorous ways but endearing, copious tears. It is rare to see a leading man in this testosterone-ridden industry openly displaying vulnerability – this one buries his head in his father’s chest and cries as unabashedly as a baby. Yet, during the course of his efforts to woo Charu, when he spots her in a dangerous circumstance surrounded by a clearly potentially violent group of men one day, this same sweet Rajesh tells his buddy almost gleefully: “This situation is a godsend for me.” 

Whatever rewards Mandharam may offer – the pleasant songs and background score by Mujeeb Majeed being among them – they cannot make up for the bland writing with its been-there-seen-that-in-other-films feel and the inconsistent production values. Vijay seems to have gotten confused between lifelessness and the engaging realism of what some people call Malayalam New Age cinema. Mandharam is so uninspired that it makes you wonder why anyone bothered to make it at all. 

Rating (out of five stars): *

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	137 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/mandharam-movie-review-asif-alis-earnestness-is-sucked-dry-in-this-poor-imitation-of-premam-5334111.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/mandharamcinema/