Oru Jaathi Jaathakam

Vampire Owl: We had missed this movie despite the comic side.

Vampire Bat: We were afraid that this would be overdone, and we were also too busy for this kind of a movie.

Vampire Owl: I am still seeing signs of things being overdone.

Vampire Bat: Well, we do watch dumb comedies too.

Vampire Owl: I hope for the best with this one due to a nice cast.

Vampire Bat: The cast can twist our ideas rather too much.

Vampire Owl: The multi-starrers would still get a minimum.

Vampire Bat: Well, not the case of multi-performers.

Vampire Owl: I have never liked the idea of people calling themselves stars.

Vampire Bat: They wish to be called stars instead of actors or actresses, but being a star is not really a reflection of acting skills.

[Gets a chicken dosa and three cups of Munnar tea].

What is the movie about? :: Jayesh (Vineeth Sreenivasan) is a man who has closed in on his forties, and has been looking for a suitable bride for quite a long time. When a girl named Sinitha (Nikhila Vimal), who is an expert in palmistry looks at his hand and tells him that this will be the worst time of his life, it makes him wonder, but the attempts at getting married, and the resulting failure makes him wonder if she was right all along. Sinitha had also precited that he will be ridiculed by many in his life and that that the real problem for him is within. He cannot help being careful about it, and at the same time, the family is really worried about him not getting married. His father Raghavan (P. P. Kunhikrishnan) is further worried as his son is supposed to get married before he gets to his seventy, or according to predictions, something bad would happen to him, most probably even death. Jayesh hopes that a leading matrimonial website can help him, and keeps calling the assigned agent Baby (Sayanora Philip) all the time, with unusual expectations while keeping himself a very traditional man who accept no deviation from his beliefs and ideas.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: It is seen that he has been looking for an alliance for such a long time with so many faces going through, that he ends up visiting the same girl twice. His colleague Suchithra (Haritha Parokod) advices him not to be very vocal about his views which sounds outdated, and this brings him in a fight with Thathrikutty (Isha Talwar), a writer who is also not ready to move an inch from her highly biased views. It is then that his wedding is almost fixed to Gopika (Aishwarya Midhun), a girl who seems to match all of his expectations. But the twist occurs when she tells him that after traveling with her best friend Krishna (Shaun Romy) and after sharing room with her during the trip, she had explored her romantic and sexual desires through experiences together and is now a lesbian – that both of them are in love. But confused people feel that he is the one who is homosexual, after videos of him kissing a man after getting drunk goes viral. This further dampens his situation among people looking for an alliance. A depressed Jayesh goes back to his workplace in Chennai and finds that a few more people have taken rooms in his big flat which is already shared.

And what more can happen here as confusions continue to come in? :: One of the new inmates is Merin (Chippy Devassy), who advices him against taking all these things seriously, and it makes him wonder about the whole situation when he has tried to remain prude, but nothing really worked out in his favour. He also becomes friends with Payal (Kayadu Lohar), a North Indian girl in the next flat, as he has two women friends outside his extended family for the first time in his life. Meanwhile, his boss Babu (Babu Antony) provides him with the card of Pallavi (Indu Thampi) who has been a successful match-maker despite being divorced at an early age. He continues to see many girls, but finds out that none of them comes to a suitable acceptance. Finally, his marriage is fixed with traditional girl whom the family finds for him, Meghna (Varsha Ramesh), but the question remains if at least this one will really happen, as there have been so many similar situations which never really materialized. He even had random people like Gopalakrishnan (Vidhu Prathap) in his dreams who stop his wedding; can this time be a welcome change to his life?

The defence of Oru Jaathi Jaathakam :: The movie is pretty much funny and entertaining, especially in the form of a light-hearted time-pass movie which intentionally creates laughable situations and comic dialogues. Going for the same without high expectations just to relax for about two hours would make this the right choice, and Amazon Prime Video has very less such movies added in there in the last one or two years, this being one of them. Vineeth Sreenivasan is indeed good in his exaggerated, and at the same time uninhibited comic acting. His work with regional dialect is also favourable. The complicated modern arranged-marriage struggles and the anxieties of a late-30s protagonist remain quite reflective. Among the long female cast, it is Chippy Devassy who scores the most and it is one lovely character nicely brought to life – we would hope to see more of her in the Malayalam movie industry. The next one we note is Indu Thampi, and Kayadu Lohar is right behind. Varsha Ramesh, Haritha Parokod, Aishwarya Midhun and Shaun Romy also leave quick mark here. Babu Antony has a smooth stay in this one too.

The claws of flaw :: The movie often makes us feel that it was made in a hurry, and even dialogues feel like they were quickly created to match the situations which were indeed brought to the front to create the laughter, and sometimes, it feels like forced out of nowhere. They have also restricted the role of Nikhila Vimal and Isha Talwar despite having scope, which is disappointing, as most hope was surely around there; and Sayanora Philip is left without impact coming in through phone calls which even feel unnecessary with the regular progress happening without the same. One has to wonder if some of the cast were just included to increase the list of much known actresses in the industry. Some of the humour can be considered old-fashioned, regressive or insensitive, and not working for the age. In between, we wonder where the story is progressing, as it does pause in the middle of nowhere, and struggles are also visible. There are many repetitions which keep us wondering if the movie will finally reach a conclusion, or whether things will just keep happening.

How it finishes :: Oru Jaathi Jaathakam makes its point in simple and often silly fun on Amazon Prime Video. Surprisingly, this release was not given that much of a space in the news about OTT releases, and that might have kept the flick less watched. We have enjoyed movies like Maranamass, Enkilum Chandrike, Falimy, Sahasam, Adi Kapyare Koottamani and Kunjiramayanam a lot without thinking too much – this one is surely not that much fun in comparison, but you can see that this one also serves the purpose enough. Even with too many lady characters played by notable actresses and also lesser-known ones, and despite having a few moments which feel ridiculous or regressive, the movie goes on to its end in an entertaining manner, leaving the repetitions behind. If you are having a fine weekend with nothing much to do, watching this movie is something that you would prefer, especially when not looking that much for anything innovative, special or with the demand for using that much of a brain. Well, you cannot keep asking for the intellectual side all the time.

Release date: 31st January 2025
Running time: 124 minutes
Directed by: M. Mohanan
Starring: Vineeth Sreenivasan, Nikhila Vimal, Babu Antony, Kayadu Lohar, Indu Thampi, Chippy Devassy, P. P. Kunhikrishnan, Amal Thaha, Isha Talwar, Pooja Mohanraj, Sayanora Philip, Mridul Nair, Aishwarya Midhun Koroth, Shaun Romy, Ranji Kankol, Rejitha Madhu, Varsha Ramesh, Arvind Reghu, Sharoon Lakshman, Sivadas Kannur, Sarath Sabha, Haritha Parokod, Nirmal Palazhi