REVIEW 606: ABHIYUDE KADHA ANUVINTEYUM

Release date:	May 25, 2018
Director:	B.R. Vijayalakshmi
Cast: Language:	Tovino Thomas, Pia Bajpai, Rohini, Suhasini, Manobala, Prabhu Malayalam with some Tamil dialogues

It takes more than just charisma to rise above the inadequacies of a script. It takes experience. Tovino Thomas made for an irresistible scamp as a gangster hopelessly in love in Aashiq Abu’s Mayaanadhi last year and blazed across the screen with his intensity in Oru Mexican Aparatha, but his rawness becomes clear when his character who is meant to be a lovable young fellow turns out, in fact, to be quite irritating as he romances the heroine in the new Malayalam film Abhiyude Kadha Anuvinteyum (Abhi’s Story Is Also Anu’s Story), titled Abhiyum Anuvum (Abhi and Anu) in its simultaneously shot and released Tamil avatar.

He is not alone of course. Pia Bajpai, who plays Anu to his Abhi, is hampered as much by the writing as by her own acting limitations. Her Anu is just as irritating as Abhi is when their characters woo each other in the film’s first half.

Cinematographer-turned-director B.R. Vijayalakshmi’s Abhiyude Kadha Anuvinteyum (AKA) is written by Udayabanu Maheswaran. Before I proceed with this review, let me register my protest at the absence of English/Malayalam subtitles for the sizeable number of Tamil dialogues in the film. This calls for a separate discussion. Here for now is the story. AKA revolves around two youngsters who are poles apart – he works at a regular office in Chennai, she is a free-spirited organic farmer in Idukki, his preoccupations are personal, she is a social worker. Anu and Abhi encounter each other on the social media, then meet, fall in love and marry in a jiffy, before fate threatens to tear them asunder.

(Possible spoilers ahead) The revelation about Anu and Abhi’s relationship that comes in text on screen at the end, answers a question that was staring us in the face for almost an hour. It is a wonder that the lead couple were either too stupid or ignorant about biology to think of asking it. Without giving anything away, this is it: whose egg was it? Watch the film and you will know what I am referring to. When the answer comes in the finale, the entire premise of the tragedy that befalls them collapses. (Spoiler alert ends) 

Vijayalakshmi spares no effort in embellishing AKA’s wrapping. Compared to the other two Malayalam films I have watched this week, Kaamuki and Aabhaasam, this one is clearly the most technologically accomplished and appears the most costly. 

Dharan Kumar’s background score, for one, adds to the surface allure of this package although the songs are too many and too generic. Cinematographer Agilan has made optimum use of the locations at his disposal, from thickly vegetated mountainous regions that lend themselves to great visuals to a less conventionally handsome urban high-rise apartment complex. His work in home interiors in the city and the countryside are facilitated by Shiva Yadav’s spiffy production design.

However much fluff and gloss AKA couches itself in though, it cannot hide the fact that it is a regressive film convinced of its progressiveness. Among other things, there is the exasperatingly clichéd route taken by Anu and Abhi’s courtship, rejigging tropes that should be familiar to anyone who regularly watches commercial Indian cinema across languages. Everything these two do is positioned as cute and sweet and breezy and forward, but at the end of the day she turns out to be a tease who plays a cruel game with him to test his love for her, in scenes that conform to the standard assumption that this is precisely how all women behave with men, that when a woman says “no” what she means is she wants to be chased.

In some ways, AKA reminded me of Mani Ratnam’s OK Kanmani in which the veteran director gave us not a true-blue young romance but his vision of what today’s youth do when in love blended with a quaintly traditional older person’s idea of coolth. AKA is far more harmful. For genuine coolth born of conviction and broad-mindedness, not just a desire to engage with a new audience, watch Mayaanadhi, my friends.

Anu and Abhi are the Barbie and Ken of Indian conservatism, with all the trappings that tend to be viewed by mainstream Indian cinema as hallmarks of modernity – a bustling social media life for both, short skirts, strappy tops and teeny shorts for her – although they camouflage a dangerously conservative core.

(Spoiler ahead) It must rank as one of the longest running conspiracies in human history that generations of women have chosen to hide from their daughters and friends or even outrightly lie to them about the extreme discomfort and pain involved in pregnancy and childbirth and the emotional difficulties that follow, painting instead a picture of mommydom as unadulterated bliss. Via Anu, Vijayalakshmi plays along with this nonsensical romanticisation of motherhood (which denies young women the right to make informed choices about whether or not to have babies). When Abhi expresses regret that he cannot share the difficulties she will endure to give birth to their child, Anu replies, “Idiot, no woman sees what she goes through for childbirth as difficulty blah blah blah.” Speak for yourself, Ms. The truth is, no woman can bust the myth without risking being shamed as selfish and unfeminine. (Spoiler alert ends) 

At first, the post-interval portion of AKA raises interesting and pressing questions related to the pro-choice versus pro-life debate, but the mask is blown off its superficial liberalism once and for all in a speech delivered by Abhi’s neighbour Revathy (Suhasini) to his mother Bhuvana about the true meaning of maatrithva (motherhood). While there is no doubt that Bhuvana has been a neglectful parent to Abhi, she is no less deserving of condemnation than her husband, but he, of course, is spared a lecture because, as we all know, fathers are held up to lower standards than mothers.

Quietly implied in this sermon is also an anti-abortion message.

For all its shimmer and sparkle, pretty pictures and pretty 21st century people, Abhiyude Kadha Anuvinteyum is just a bunch of medieval values wearing expensive make-up.

Rating (out of five stars): *

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	121 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/abhiyude-kadha-anuvinteyum-movie-review-pia-bajpai-and-tovino-thomas-play-the-barbie-and-ken-of-indian-conservatism-4483589.html

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

REVIEW 383: LAAL RANG

Release date:	April 22, 2016
Director:	Syed Ahmad Afzal
Cast: Language:	Randeep Hooda, Akshay Oberoi, Pia Bajpai, Meenakshi Dixit, Rajniesh Duggall Hindi

Let’s get this out of the way first. Randeep Hooda is hot. It is worth the price of a ticket just to see him wandering around in sleeveless vests throughout this film. He also takes off his shirt at one point, letting the camera linger on a really really admirable yet not obviously gym-sculpted, over-muscled back. That is a second ticket taken care of.

A it happens, this man – who we first saw in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding in 2001 – is one of contemporary Indian cinema’s most talented, most under-rated actors. It is a mystery why he is not a bigger star.

Hooda’s talent and looks are very much in evidence in director Syed Ahmad Afzal’s Laal Rang. Question is: does the film add up to more than what he has to offer?

Laal Rang revolves around an extremely important subject: corruption in blood banks. It is set in Karnal, Haryana, where Shankar Malik (Hooda) runs a successful blood donation racket. To make his illegal activities easier by becoming a government insider, he enrols in a Medical Lab Technology course at a government hospital. There he meets the young and impressionable Rajesh Dhiman (Akshay Oberoi) who is so awe-struck by his charisma, his swagger, his inventive ways of making money under the table and his Yamaha RX100 (which, the film tells us, makes men irresistible to women) that he soon becomes his protégé.

Also in the picture is their straight-laced classmate Poonam Sharma (Pia Bajpai) and a late entrant into the story, Superintendent of Police Gajraj Singh (Rajniesh Duggall), the local Haryanvi boy who made it big.

The film’s supporting actors are a uniformly competent lot, though a special mention must be made of Rajendra Sethi – another excellent yet underrated actor – playing one of Shankar’s cohorts. Bajpai is good for the most part even though she is not entirely convincing with her fake bad English.

In what is one of the film’s nicest touches, the characters in Laal Rang are not built up as menacing repulsive villains, yet they are clearly an amoral bunch who, for instance, celebrate a dengue epidemic because of the gains it brings blood racketeers like them. What the film teaches us about their underhand dealings is terrifying. It is the kind of story that will make you hesitate to ever visit a blood bank again, though of course we do not have a choice in this matter, a realisation that would chill any normal human being to the bone.

The film’s undoing is what seems to be confusion over the tone it wants to achieve. And so, although large parts of the narrative have a very apt, realistic feel to them, Laal Rang never becomes as gritty as it needed to be because of its tendency to intermittently wander off into long, loud songs supplemented by stylised, slow motion shots. The insistent background score is used to underline every single emotion, twist and turn as if for fear that the audience may miss the point.

As standalone scenes and music videos outside a feature film, some of these are pretty impressive. In one passage in the film, for instance, Shankar takes Rajesh for a ride on his mobike and as the music plays and the wind blows through his hair, he seems to ask his young pillion rider to take the handlebars while he himself lets go and reaches into his pocket for a cigarette. Ooh. Neat.

While this scene works because it comes before we discover the horrid reality of the blood underworld that is Laal Rang’s focus, once we settle into that theme, the repeated musical asides become an irritant.

A great subject alone doth not a great film make. Relevant topics translate into good films when they are peopled with human beings that we become completely involved with. That does not happen here. There is a distant feel to Laal Rang, the air of a newspaper reporter recounting a corruption scandal as a detached observer would and should, rather than an insider’s account, which is what this is supposed to be.

There is a memorable moment early in Laal Rang when Shankar hails a cycle rickshaw, and an aerial shot shows us every single rickshawpuller on that street immediately freezing at his summons. They do it out of choice and not for fear of him, as we soon find out. One of the poor men tells Rajesh that they consider Shankar god (the choice of divine name for the character even comes up for a mention at one point). Later we realise that all the men in that scene were probably professional donors (PDs) whose impoverished existence was greatly improved by the extra money Shankar’s business brings in.

The film needed more of that kind of material minus the overdone music. Laal Rang tells us a lot about the fraudulent operations of the country’s blood banks. Wish it had got us to feel invested in the lives of the men and women who run the fraud, especially the likes of Shankar and Rajesh who have a straight path staring them in the face yet choose a crooked way.

This film has many interesting individual elements but fails to lift off in its entirety. So yes, Randeep Hooda is hot, but Laal Rang is not.  

Rating (out of five): **1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	150 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/laal-rang-review-randeep-hooda-and-the-topic-are-hot-the-film-is-not-2743036.html

Photograph courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/LaalRangMovie/