Rasna Pavithran – Movies of the Soul

What is the movie about? :: Jomon (Dulquer Salmaan) is the youngest son of a very rich businessman named Vincent (Mukesh) who hails from the city of Thrissur. The big family is Vincent’s other success story along with his huge business empire and assets – it includes Laly (Muthumani), Alphonse (Vinu Mohan) and Jessy (Rasna Pavithran) as well as their spouses who are all successful people in life, along with Jomon who is considered as the son who is born to spoil the name of the family along with all the money that he keeps squandering. He successfully continues the procedure, as he finishes the trouble-making with a sentence that ends with “still I love you” to his father. There is no shortage of people who think that he is good for nothing though, as he even misses his sister Jessy’s wedding function after he meets his old friend Mushtaq (Jacob Gregory) and spends time at a bar with him at Coimbatore, ending up in the police station.

Where are things heading for? :: It is during these times that Jomon falls in love with Catherine (Anupama Parameswaran) which changes the attitude of his family members towards him, as she is from one of the richest families around, and her parents have business established in various parts of the Middle East. They get really close until one day, Vincent miscalculates one of his business deals, and has his biggest failure in life. Everyone blames Vincent for the terrible decision he made, but Jomon doesn’t. He stands with his father, and hopes to reclaim at least most of what was lost. For the same, he relocates with Vincent to Tirupur in Tamil Nadu, and meets Vydehi (Aishwarya Rajesh) who helps him and vice versa. It was easy to go forward in the early stages, and now the question remains about how he can get his father to return to his lost glory, as that world is miles away.

The defence of Jomonte Suvisheshangal :: Without much of a surprise, Dulquer Salmaan leads the way as the protagonist, on whom this movie is based right from the title itself – there are messages about family, and there is some motivation to go through it; even as there is not that much visible. There is also some comedy, and the emotional side remains strong in this one, especially around Dulquer and Mukesh. Even with the smaller roles, Indu Thampi and Rasna Pavithran from Oozham get their moments too, even more than the bigger names in the cast. This will work even better for you if you haven’t watched Jacobinte Swargarajyam which has the same theme. The one bigger positive in this movie’s messages is that this one tells the audience to save more while the movie from last year was asking to earn more – it was more reclaiming the glory that was lost, while this one builds another one, something that is different from what was gone. It is also a long way ahead of the disappointing Kali, but is nowhere near that beautiful divergent dream which was Charlie.

Claws of flaw :: There is absolutely no attempt to bring anything new with Jomonte Suvisheshangal, and there is no trying to make things less predictable throughout its run. They have also wasted Anupama Parameswaran in a role which was rather not needed – well, in another Malayalam movie, she gets less time on the screen after the hero sees her inside a church; Premam and now this. Aishwarya Rajesh, despite suiting the character she played, works less as a pair to Dulquer. Another sad thing is that there isn’t enough of a funny side provided for Jacob Gregory’s character, even when there was so much chance, for he is to Dulquer, what Aju Varghese has been to Nivin Pauly. The songs are not that good, even though “Nokki nokki” is something that will do well without being related to the overall progress of the movie. There is also that level that we expect from Sathyan Anthikad, which is not there – that won’t be considered the right thing.

Soul exploration :: The idea of the prodigal son continues here, as the money laundering son comes back to his father – well, he even saves the day. It is not something that we have missed; this is something that a hero would do in a movie without fail. A rather inexperienced son becoming all responsible to help his father when his business faces a crisis, isn’t really a new thing even for the newer team of movie watchers, as we had witnessed the same in the last year’s Nivin Pauly starrer, Jacobinte Swargagrajyam. With Dulquer Salmaan replacing Nivin Pauly, we have a similar tale here; it is Mukesh who replaces Renji Panicker too. But considering both movies as the same will be doing injustice, and we can only consider them to be similar as we look at how things have been proceeding. This thought is something which is often related to real-life incidents, and so Jomonte Suvisheshangal surely has the right to take it as much as any other flick.

Further soul exploration :: Those who have watched both movies won’t find it easy to stop these comparisons coming into their minds. In a movie in which Dulquer once again leaves his home, but this time with his father, one can safely say that the success of this movie does belong to him, as most of the time, it is him or Mukesh that holds the movie together. This one could have actually worked well with its songs and visuals as Jacobinte Swargarajyam did though. As far as similarities and differences are concerned, we have two businessmen whose sons get responsible all of a sudden, one at Dubai and the other at Thrissur, both families Christian, one Orthodox and the other Catholic, both the families having four children, with a more evenly matched gender count here without a mother, the Mercedes Benz being there in both cases – there is also at least one heroine who has less to do in both movies; well, everything ends well too with the handsome son doing the heroics helped by one stranger who gets impressed, whether it is Vineeth Srinivasan or a European lady.

How it finishes :: Being the first movie to release after the theatre strike, Jomonte Suvisheshangal surely had the advantage, and no wonder there were so many people wishing to watch this one on the big screen. Having one day advantage over Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol, this one certainly managed to begin well, and also continues to attract the crowds. With a simple story that will appeal to the family audience, both these movies have managed to make sure that things are going on well for Malayalam cinema, even as there was a break after Pulimurugan created that record of 150 crores – well, that one is still running, as you will notice. With no element of boredom, Jomonte Suvisheshangal is also certain to bring some fine moments for the audience. As Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol is also doing well, we can expect the theatres to be full with Ezra, Georgettan’s Pooram and Fukri getting ready for release.

Release date: 19th January 2017
Running time: 158 minutes
Directed by: Sathyan Anthikad
Starring: Dulquer Salmaan, Anupama Parameswaran, Mukesh, Jacob Gregory, Aishwarya Rajesh, Innocent, Irshad, Muthumani, Manobala, Rasna Pavithran, Vinu Mohan, Shivaji Guruvayoor, Vinod Kedamangalam, Indu Thampi

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

What is it about? :: Surya (Prithviraj Sukumaran) is an engineer working in the United States. His family includes his father, the health inspector Krishnamurthy (Balachandra Menon), his mother Subhalakshmi (Seetha) and his sister Aiswarya (Rasna Pavithran). He also has an adopted brother Aju (Neeraj Madhav) who has returned home after resigning from a big job in Microsoft. All seems to go well until one incident changes their lives forever. The world knows it as a mysterious illness killing three members of a family – the father, mother and daughter, but Surya and Aju know that it is not so. Bound by the need for revenge, they team up with Gayathri (Divya Pillai) who has also lost her sibling to an incident on the same day. Soon, they realise that both these incidents are connected.

So what happens next? :: As doubts are raised about who would want to kill the members of this family, all fingers finally point to Wilfred Marcus (Jayaprakash) and his sons Andrew Wilfred Marcus (Tony Luke) and Edwin Wilfred Marcus (Anson Paul). As they set on a path of war against the multi-national company run by these three, there is sure to be a tough job ahead – Surya uses his skills as an expert in creating controlled explosions as part of his job in the United States, while Aju and Gayathri supports the cause. So, this huge firm which supplies medicines after spreading diseases, will have no regret in wiping families out – will they stand these three people going on a war against them? How can a multi-billionaire empire be brought down to its knees by people with no influence? It is to be seen.

The defence of Oozham :: The better side of the movie might be the drama, but that also seems to be on the lines of many other movies; a perfect family with things going worse all of a sudden. With the presence of one cute little sister and a rather modern younger brother goes in lines of Jacobinte Swargarajyam. The idea is good, there is no doubt about it, but had to be presented in a better way, as an original work with more thrills. The cast is all good, and the effectiveness depends on them. The visuals are also nicely done. There is also the message which rather goes lost. The hero-heroine romance never really gets going – that is a relief, as the movie would have drifted further otherwise. This one surely has some interesting moments, and it is for the same that we can go for this movie.

The claws of flaw :: The biggest problem of this movie is that things come too easy. The protagonists all of a sudden seems like people who have been doing the same thing for centuries, may be from the time when the first civilisation was born on the banks of a river – only the immortals could do things this easily against what is claimed to be such a giant organisation. Even the idea itself goes back to the time when the first man was born. Oozham remains outdated in its idea, and even in the way of presentation, it just adds a non-linear narrative which is rather too strange, just like that unnecessary magic realism in Life of Josutty. There are no twists around here, and things finish too comfortably as we wait for the big climax to take our breath away – that is never really there. From the realistic, flawed heroes of Memories, Drishyam and Life of Josutty, we are back to those perfect heroes, sadly.

Performers of the soul :: Prithviraj, as expected remains the central figure, and the biggest selling point of this movie throughout its run. The character, no matter how less developed it is, remains safe in his hands. It is his screen presence that gives something to this protagonist, even when the trouble gets worse with the weak script full of all the cliches you have seen in the movies in so many languages. Neeraj Madhav is provided with another half-baked character who seems to be there in the name of secularism rather than anything else, and he gives some flavour to the one dimensional character that hacks anything because he can – couldn’t this character have a better identity of his own? One has to wonder. These two actors could have brought a huge blockbuster with fine reviews if the script was better.

Further performers of the soul :: Coming right out of Ayal Njanalla, Divya Pillai’s character goes on a struggle here; she has kept it going in a straight line, but there is nothing much for her, and she doesn’t come up with anything out of the box. Rasna Pavithran seems to do a simpler version of the cute act which Aima Rosmy Sebastian did in Jacobinte Swargarajyam and that certainly works. The idea of some cute sister moments has been a family favourite these days, and this movie attempts to use that to its advantage. Actually, one has to say that each member of the cast gets drawn into the set of cliches here, and that has limited the performances to an extent. Pasupathy is strong here, but is rather underused as a character that could have been presented better. Jayaprakash remains a nice villain throughout, but is let down by how the character is not strengthened by the necessary dose of corporate evil. Balachandra Menon and Seetha plays a fine couple with ease.

How it finishes :: There are better things which this movie could have done with its idea which has always been there in movies of other languages. Yes, it is more of a revenge drama than the thriller, but even in that genre, this movie has its limitations. When things come too easily, there is less scope for drama; there was the need to make one feel for the protagonist, but there is nothing there. Still, this movie doesn’t go uninteresting; we can watch it just because we have time – it doesn’t go terrible; Oozham has enough in it to make an average watch as long as you are in a good mood. The worst movie of Jeethu Joseph so far is here, but that is just a statement about his skill as a director, and not a judgment about this movie which can be watched without much expectations and some extra time to spare. This is where you find the cliche collection again; so just don’t look for anything new, even in the dialogues.

Release date: 8th September 2016
Running time: 140 minutes
Directed by: Jeethu Joseph
Starring: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Divya Pillai, Rasna Pavithran, Neeraj Madhav, Balachandra Menon, Kishor Satya, Irshad, Jayaprakash, Pasupathy, Seetha, Tony Luke, Anson Paul