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Release
date:
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September 7, 2018
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Director:
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Fellini T.P.
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Cast:
Language:
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Tovino Thomas, Samyuktha Menon,
Saiju Kurup, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Surabhi Lakshmi, Shammi Thilakan
Malayalam
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Theevandi revolves around a
nicotine addict in rural Kerala who seems set to smoke his life away when the
central action in the story begins. He is hardly the sort of person you would
expect as the protagonist of a mainstream comedy – unless you are a regular
viewer of Malayalam cinema, in which case you know of course that the slice-of-life
genre, unconventional subjects, unlikely heroes and occasionally, heroines, are
now standard practice in this film industry.
Bineesh
Damodaran runs through so many cigarette packets in a day, that he has earned
the nickname “Theevandi”, literally meaning “train”, the allusion being
of course to a burning and/or smoke-producing machine. He’s the kind of guy who
might advise a fellow smoker to “tell St Peter at the Golden Gate, that you
hate to make him wait, but you just gotta have another cigarette”, as “nicotine
slaves” did in the old American country music number Smoke! Smoke!Smoke! (That Cigarette).
Theevandi occupies itself
with the question: will our boy ever be free of his dangerous habit, especially
now that it is affecting the woman he loves who loves him but hates his
stinking smoker’s breath, and his politically ambitious brother-in-law?
Bineesh’s family and the entire village are agog with wonder since they have
watched him puff his health away from his schooldays.
Theevandi stars the thinking
woman’s Romeo, Tovino Thomas, as Bineesh. He is unemployed but occasionally
helps in the family’s small business, never allowing his idleness or work to
interrupt his romance with cigarettes. Thomas brings heft and unassuming charm
to his performance, in a role that is more light-footed than his acclaimed
screen outings last year in Mayaanadhi, Godha and Oru Mexican Aparatha.
Newcomer Samyuktha Menon is poised and self-assured while playing his girlfriend. Devi
is a government employee who clearly has her act together while Bineesh does
not. Thomas and Menon make a sweet couple.
The
rest of the cast are a mixed bag. Suraj Venjaramoodu as Devi’s father and Saiju
Kurup as Bineesh’s brother-in-law are competent as usual, but Surabhi Lakshmi
as their political party’s secretary blatantly over-acts.
The
first half of Theevandi is sustained by its comedic vein, the
chemistry between the leads, and curiosity about where director Fellini T.P.
and writer Vini Viswa Lal could possibly take this theme. The genteel satire
here is rudely interrupted though by a woman jokingly threatening to pour acid
on her boyfriend’s face – a remark that is treated with stunning casualness in
the script – and visuals of her slapping him repeatedly that are used as a
supposedly humourous refrain in their relationship. This violent motif mars the
picturisation of the lovely song Jeevamshamayi.
Too
many Malayalam films are blasé in their portrayal of intimate partner violence
inflicted on women by men. Women form a majority of victims in real life too,
but that cannot justify nonchalance towards a reverse situation: a woman
hitting or threatening a man ain’t cute or funny, Messrs Fellini and Lal. The
mindlessness of this aspect of the writing is most glaring in a scene in which
Devi slaps Bineesh in the absence of witnesses at her home, but seconds later,
when he slaps her back her furious family pours into the room to slam him. This
is just the kind of scenario around which MRAs wrap their victimhood – “she got
away with it, but look how they condemn the paavam man,” etc.
These
interludes are particularly jarring because the rest of Theevandi,
whatever its other weaknesses may be, remains doggedly breezy.
Much
of the genius of the contemporary middle-of-the-road Malayalam cinema that film
buffs across India so admire lies in observant writing, those multiple
characters who are memorable even if they get hardly any screen time, the
insights into life in smaller communities, and the ability to rib a people for
their follies without caricaturing them. There is hope in Theevandi
before the interval and especially in that trippy scene in which Bineesh attempts to
set a Guinness record with his smoking, but that tone does not last.
And
so, while Theevandi is a job well begun, as it saunters along
from the interval onwards it appears that the writer does not quite know how to
take his concept forward. After a point, Lal seems not to have a clue how to
handle Bineesh’s addiction, fails to arrive at an appropriate mix of comedy and
gravitas to deal with it, is unable to lend any depth to the many smaller
characters surrounding Bineesh and Devi who seemed promising initially, and resorts to clichés and long
shots of Bineesh’s community instead of the intimate close-ups that have made
the likes of Maheshinte Prathikaaram and Angamaly Diaries so
memorable.
A
considerable part of the first half of Theevandi is genuinely
funny. And the attractive combined presence of the ever-reliable Mr Thomas and
young Ms Menon keep the film running even when the writing runs out of steam.
In a choice between “good”, “bad”, “ugly” or “okay” to describe this film, I am going with “okay” then.
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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2 hours 24 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Visuals
courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/TheevandiTheMovie/
