REVIEW 690: ATHIRAN

Release date:	Kerala: April 12, 2019 Delhi: April 19, 2019
Director:	Vivek
Cast: Language:	Fahadh Faasil, Sai Pallavi, Atul Kulkarni, Leena, Surabhi Lakshmi, Sudev Nair, Leona Lishoy, Renji Panicker, Shanthi Krishna, Prakash Raj Malayalam with English

So Fahadh Faasil is human after all. Anyone thinking that New Malayalam Cinema’s poster boy could do no wrong after his dream run with the back-to-back arrival of Varathan, Njan Prakashan and KumbalangiNights in theatres in recent months is likely to be given pause by Athiran. Writer-director Vivek’s film does have a promising premise, but it struggles to stay afloat in the writing of the screenplay, the direction and even some of the acting. It coulda been a contender, as On The Waterfront’s Terry Malloy might have said, but what it ends up being instead is tepid fare. 

Athiran opens with an eerie scene in which a character played by Shanthi Krishna sees a bunch of unexplained bodies lying around her house. Fast forward to a few years later, and Fahadh Faasil’s character is headed to a home for the mentally ill in the Kerala countryside where he introduces himself as Dr M.K. Nair to the doctor-in-charge, Dr Benjamin Diaz (Atul Kulkarni). Nair reveals that he has been sent by medical authorities in Thiruvananthapuram to check on what are suspected to be questionable practices by Diaz.  

We gradually meet the inmates at the centre: a girl who dresses in a nun’s habit (Leona Lishoy), a dashing and loquacious young fellow (Sudev Nair), an oddly protective lady (Surabhi Lakshmi), an elderly professor who speaks repeatedly of schadenfreude (Vijay Menon), and others.

Dr Diaz and his suspicious Woman Friday, Renuka (played by Leena), resist Nair every step of the way, but soon he comes face to face with their most closely guarded patient: Nithya (Sai Pallavi). She is the present-day link to the dead people shown in the opening.

The best part of Athiran comes towards the beginning when Nair is on the road to Diaz’s place. Director of Photography Anu Moothedath’s camera wanders unfettered across the thickly green landscape, pulling up up and away to give us extreme high angle aerial shots, returning quietly to take a closer look at the ground, staying with Dr Nair and his fellow travellers as we listen to their chatter for a bit, wandering silently among and over trees, zooming out again and then coming back. Quite remarkably, it does all this without moving in a dizzying fashion, instead pacing itself slowly and giving those scenes a watchful air. The natural splendour of the region is inescapable as is the grandeur of the British colonial-era mansion from which Dr Diaz operates, but the overriding impression is of a land and a residence holding secrets that must be feared.

At first, Vivek’s collaboration with Moothedath and background score composer Ghibran succeeds in creating a sense of foreboding. But as time passes, the camera gets somewhat manipulative in a clichéd fashion (such as with that shot of just one of Fahadh Faasil’s eyes), and combined with an increasingly insistent score, starts chipping away at the ominous atmosphere rather than exacerbating it.

Considering the megaton wattage of the names in the credits, the acting is, surprisingly, a mixed bag. On the one hand there is Fahadh Faasil’s very intelligent performance, with some of its confusing aspects making absolute sense once the big reveal comes around in the end. On the other hand there is the usually dependable and remarkable Atul Kulkarni who over-acts throughout Athiran.

Sai Pallavi can perhaps be partly excused for her inconsistent performance, because her Nithya is meant to be autistic but Vivek (who wrote the story) and his co-writer P.F. Mathews (who did the screenplay and dialogues) don’t seem to have a well-rounded understanding of this developmental disorder, which is used in Athiran as nothing more than a tool to intimidate and confuse audiences. That said, actors have a responsibility to do their own research too, and the sharpness of Nithya’s gaze in the action scenes suggests insufficient homework done for this role. After having left a lasting impression as Malar Miss from Premam and the terrified Anjali from Kali, the solitary plus for this charismatic young Tamil-Telugu-Malayalam actor here is that Athiran shows her desire to experiment.

With the film floundering on the writing front right from the start, it is no surprise that other elements end up being shaky. Vivek probably had a good idea to begin with, but he and Mathews seem torn between wanting to make a paranormal thriller or a crime saga woven around a portrait of mental health. To throw us off their scent, they keep implying that the film is one or the other, but in the end, once the final twist is done and dusted, there are too many loose ends, red herrings and unconvincing motivations left hanging that the team seems not to have known how to tie up. Just think, for instance, of the painter who can see into the future among the patients at Dr Diaz’s home for the mentally ill.

In fact, after their introductory scenes, Nithya’s fellow patients are given nothing to remember them by beyond the defining quirk assigned to each one. Even the insertion of Kalari into the plot feels superfluous, an attempt perhaps to either divert attention from and/or provide an indigenous touch to the very obvious Hollywood source for the plot.

Besides, the narrative goes slack after a while. The musical interludes do not help at all, most especially that passage featuring a song in which a crucial character is shown romancing another in conventional commercial Indian cinema style.

It is hard to believe that Mathews was the writer of Ee.Ma.Yau., director Lijo Jose Pellissery’s incredibly beautiful funeral film released last year. The story of Athiran maybe Vivek’s, but the screenplay after all is Mathews’. Considering the expectations raised by the stellar credits, Athiran’s ordinariness is a big disappointment.

Rating (out of five stars): *3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	135 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/athiran-movie-review-fahadh-faasil-and-sai-pallavi-have-chosen-unwisely-6484841.html

Poster courtesy:

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

REVIEW 597: ARAVINDANTE ATHIDHIKAL

Release date:	Kerala: April 27, Delhi: May 4, 2018
Director:	M. Mohanan
Cast: Language:	Vineeth Sreenivasan, Sreenivasan, Nikhila Vimal, Urvashi, Aju Varghese, Shanthi Krishna    Malayalam

A woman abandons her child in a famous temple town during Navarathri festivities in the 1990s. As the little boy desperately searches for her, he is found by Madhavan (played by Sreenivasan). The mother is nowhere to be seen, and Madhavan takes him under his roof where the child grows up to be the happy, sociable Aravindan (Vineeth Sreenivasan), popular among locals and an asset in the small hotel run by his foster father.

He never stops waiting for the beloved parent who left him without a word though. And every year during Navarathri, he mourns her disappearance by refusing to enter the temple despite joining the community in the rest of their celebrations.

Since parent-child separations have been dealt with ad nauseum in Indian cinema down the decades, any film revisiting the theme would have to work doubly hard to make itself worthwhile. The initial appeal of Aravindante Athidhikal (Aravindan’s Guests) lies in its slice-of-life texture and tone (notwithstanding some forced humour), and the close-up it offers of the goings-on around Mookambika Devi Temple in Kollur, Karnataka. The hustle and bustle of the pilgrimage centre alone should have been enough to keep it running, but the film soon strays from its USP in favour of clichés.

Once director M. Mohanan is done with establishing the atmosphere of the town and introducing us to a motley crew of potentially charming characters, it becomes clear that he has only two pre-occupations: one, to introduce a romance between a good-looking young woman and Aravindan, to establish his hero-worthiness in a stereotypical sense; and two, to re-unite Aravindan with his mother.

Mohanan does both in such a lackadaisical, unimaginative fashion, with an extended and silly smokescreen involving a renowned dancer thrown in, that Aravindante Athidhikal is reduced to a pile of very average, sentimental mush.

Malayalam filmmakers really need to get over this self-imposed mandatoriness of a romance in every male protagonist’s life and the trite manner in which such romances are portrayed. The second the actor Urvashi emerges from a bus and the camera pauses, you know a pretty youngster will follow – she does. The moment this youngster called Varada (Nikhila Vimal) appears, you know she and Aravindan will fall in love – they do.

Vineeth and Ms Vimal have zero sparks between them but they are soon smitten. She is shown noticing his innate goodness, possibly to justify those feelings on her part, but frankly, there is an inevitability to their emotions since she is clearly marked out as the designated heroine to his designated hero in this formula.

And the usual track follows: you know, boy meets girl, boy likes girl, boy bugs girl, etc?

As if the derivative writing by Rajesh Raghavan is not bad enough, there is the fact that Vineeth Sreenivasan has neither the charisma nor the acting depth to carry an entire film on his shoulders. His singing is a separate matter altogether. So it is that Vineeth himself saves Aravindante Athidhikal with his distinctive voice dominating the all-pervasive soundtrack by Shaan Rahman. While these numbers are not the best that Rahman has produced in his career, they are melodic enough and the singing (especially of Rasathi by Vineeth) haunting enough to lend an air of sadness to the film where the writing fails.

The ordinariness of the screenplay is particularly painful because Mohanan has assembled gifted artistes in his supporting cast. Veterans Sreenivasan and Urvashi are largely wasted, as is Aju Varghese in the role of Aravindan’s friend. Varghese is one of Mollywood’s finest comedians when he is not trying to lend coolth and cuteness to lecherous behaviour. He and Urvashi have their moments here, but not enough.

Nikhila Vimal’s screen presence lends more substance to her character than the writing affords. Shanthi Krishna makes a mark in a cameo that might have been unbearably melodramatic if it were not for the control she exercises over her histrionics.

Think of what might have been if Aravindante Athidhikal had used the mythology of Mookambika Devi as a metaphor against which Aravindan’s story played out. Or if the writing had thoughtfully referenced Madhavan’s Communist ideals in this profoundly Hindu setting. Or if it had dwelt at length on the bond between a fond old man and an orphan masking his heartbreak at the memory of his mother. Or what fun could have been had in full-length face-offs between Varghese and Urvashi who, when at her best, has the ability to tickle the funny bone like few others can. Wishful thinking, as it turns out.

Even the cinematography by Swaroop Philip does not fully capture the magnificence of Kollur or the Souparnika river that runs through it or the temple. Barring a few interesting frames here and there, the camerawork appears constrained for the most part.

Philip’s best shots are reserved for a scene at a tiny temple on a mountaintop where Adi Shankara is said to have prayed, but there the direction and writing let him down. I could not help but wonder how that scene would have turned out in the hands of director Venu in the mood he was in when he made Carbon last year, or Mohanan himself back when he made his directorial debut with the heartwarming Katha Parayumbol (2007).

No doubt Mohanan means well here too, but Aravindante Athidhikal’s lack of inventiveness gives it a dated feel that is redeemed somewhat by the music. To be fair, the film is not unpleasant. It is simply plain.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	122 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/aravindante-athidhikal-movie-review-vineeth-sreenivasans-singing-redeems-a-trite-mother-son-saga-4457181.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/pg/AravindanteAthidhikal.Movie/