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Release
date:
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October 5, 2018
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Director:
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Vijesh Vijay
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Cast:
Language:
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Asif Ali, Jacob
Gregory, Arjun Asokan, Vineet Vishwam, Varsha Bollamma, Anarkali Marikar,
Megha Mathew
Malayalam
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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): *
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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137 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
