Strung

Posted on September 25, 2026 by Dr. Tennyson

Vampire Owl: I have heard only about the strings of vampire violins in the castle.

Vampire Bat: Vampires do not play music in the castle.

Vampire Owl: I have heard a lot of the same from Uncle Dracula’s room.

Vampire Bat: It is not music, but voices from the other side of immortality.

Vampire Owl: The voices do make some nice music for sure.

Vampire Bat: The voices are inherited by the castle from the adoration of vampire elders.

Vampire Owl: There is always some new mystery to be unveiled from the elders.

Vampire Bat: They are all pointed towards eternity and infinity.

Vampire Owl: Well, we all know that death is only the beginning.

Vampire Bat: Beginning of the end is the one true beginning. Just run to the other side and ask Uncle Dracula.

[Gets a ghee podi idli and three cups of Kodaikanal tea].

What is the movie about? :: Laila Calloway (Chloe Bailey) is an extremely gifted, aspiring classical violinist who is working as a substitute music teacher while dreaming of a grand career which seemed out of the equation since her young little sister died of asthma and she could do nothing about it at all. This has led to her going through hallucinations and nightmares at times, which affects her performance on some occasions. Her best chance at a better career seems to have arrived when she meets Audra Jelani (Lynn Whitfield), a charming matriarch with unparalleled wealth and influence. Audra gives Laila an offer she cannot refuse in the form of a live-in music tutoring position to mentor her granddaughter, Zuri Jelani (Romy Woods). Laila understands that her high-society connections and high influence will guarantee her an easy path in her journey of music. Laila moves into the family’s highly luxurious estate which seems to belong to another world compared to the surroundings, and considers herself the luckiest person all of a sudden.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: But the situation seems to be something they did not expect, as the atmosphere inside the mansion is very much unsettling. Audra’s daughter, Imani Walker (Anna Diop) who is pregnant, does not like Laila at all, and treats her with contempt. At the same time, Laila’s young student, Zuri (Romy Woods) always wears a mask, and is deeply withdrawn, hyper-allergic, and hides her emotions at all times after the violent murder of her father, a highly popular rapper known as Reginald Garvey Bell (Pardison Fontaine). Zuri’s abiding sadness further triggers the unresolved trauma for Laila, as she has the haunting memories of her own deceased sister coming back to her. The situation gets to be further complicated with the return of Imani’s charming handsome husband, Marcus Walker (Lucien Laviscount). Laila’s finds out that Marcus is that man with whom she had a intense and passionate sexual affair just a few days before, which she considered to be her best physical experience ever. How will the family take this secret as the house itself has so many mysteries hidden in the building?

The defence of Strung :: The feeling of mystery goes right through the movie, and there is always the thought that something big can happen at any moment with so many secrets to be revealed from not just one character. Chloe Bailey keeps elevating the movie with a wide range of emotions as she goes through unexpected situations, while Lynn Whitfield’s antagonistic side adds to the overall quality of the movie. The movie surely features rich estate set design and a vibrant cinematography also supports the same, as most of its world is nothing less than stunning within a big mansion and its surroundings. The music and sound effects really add well to the same, and keeps the mood running to suit the movie. The wild twists and emotions that run further has us interested, while red herrings bring something more to take it away from the possible right guess of the twist. The final moments extend well with its moments creating a feeling of tension that goes on and on until the solution is reached.

The claws of flaw :: The movie does not reach its potential after a smart beginning, as the mystery does not get that finish it deserved. There were so many moments which could have taken in another way and made better. The twists could have also been extended in a fine manner, especially with an early connection established between two main characters and taken further with a twist as movie goes forward. The exploration of the evil and the intentions could have also been explored more to make that feeling of terror even more – as of now, it mostly exists in the background with not that much of the same shown directly or clearly. The movie also happens to be too long, and was worth not more than one and half hours, and feels stretched with a little bit too much of unnecessary details and melodrama that goes over the emotions. The feeling that the characters are over-reacting never really leaves us, and some strange dialogues also creeps in, as we keep wondering why this movie is deviating so much and wastes time in getting nowhere.

The performers of the soul :: Chloe Bailey as Laila Calloway comes up with a performance that we are going to remember for long, even though it is not a new role, with The Housemaid having its main character facing a similar situation and an angry wife and a seductive husband awaiting her. But Chloe makes sure that her role remains really good and also has some divergence associated with the same. It is to be notable that while playing a likable character, she makes the emotions of the person so much felt that we support the character even more in her complicated journey. When we look at her, there is the feeling that a Helen of Sparta with race changed would suit her more than anyone else; there is a certain amount of charm that she brings to the character which is nothing less than the same. Lynn Whitfield delivers as a seductive and manipulative matriarch with impressive aura, and the character remains one which we will remember for long. Lucien Laviscount and Anna Diop supports just fine. Romy Woods brings a lovely performance as the daughter.

How it finishes :: The movie does not reach the point where one would feel it should have reached with this kind of content as it seems to hold back on many occasions. The highly engaging thriller is not to be taken as the movie is rather slow, and the attempt to work with silence also does not work that well due to the presence of a little bit too much of melodrama. With such an interesting premise which has worked so well in the past, more could been achieved, but it is safe to say that we still have enough around here to spend some time with this one on a weekend on Jio Hotstar where it has released in India, and as the one OTT which comes with mobile recharges, more people from this part of the world would surely end up watching the flick with relative ease. As the main performers inject some much-needed charisma into the increasingly deviating movie, the interest regularly comes back, which could provide a fine feeling of being interested in a mystery which could easily bring the twist that leads to those tense final moments which serve the purpose.

Release date: 27 May 2026
Running time: 119 minutes
Directed by: Malcolm D Lee
Starring: Chloe Bailey, Lynn Whitfield, Lucien Laviscount, Anna Diop, Coco Jones, Romy Woods

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Innale Vare

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Dr. Tennyson

Vampire Owl: Is this movie about yesterdays?

Vampire Bat: From the title, it seems that yesterdays are important.

Vampire Owl: Our yesterdays are pretty much far away.

Vampire Bat: The vampire yesterdays have always been centuries away.

Vampire Owl: Not all centuries are the same.

Vampire Bat: Yes, but they are all short for us.

Vampire Owl: Not just for us, but for all immortals.

Vampire Bat: Depends on how we will take the immortality.

Vampire Owl: Does this movie fit into our immortal calendar?

Vampire Bat: It is something which is yet to be seen.

[Gets a green apple cake and three cups of chocolate tea].

What is the movie about? :: Adhi (Asif Ali) is a superstar who is now going through a struggling phase as an actor. His movies haven’t been getting the success that they used to have, and he no longer remains the crowd-puller despite having so many fans and fan clubs. Due to his lavish lifestyle, he also has a lot of debts to be paid. Due to the same reason, he is forced to act in many advertisements, most of them which he doesn’t like at all. He is in love with Aishu (Reba Monica John), whose family doesn’t approve of such a relationship, as Adhi does have other affairs too – he is almost living together with a married actress named Karthika (Athulya Chandra), and he successfully keeps that a secret. Jomi (Rony David) handles things for him as the efficient manager, but the debts seem to get worse, as money lenders even reach his home and take away his cars. Both Aishu and Karthika are infatuated with him, and is not ready to leave him at any cost. Karthika knows that she is not the only one for him, but finds comfort with him in the absence of her husband who never bothers to call her or come home.

So, what happens with the events here as we just keep looking? :: At the same time, a stranger who identifies himself as Sharath (Antony Varghese) is following him. He seems to collect information about him through cameras and hidden voice recorders. Aadhi who one day comes to know that Karthika is carrying his child, tries to get there as soon as possible, and finds a lady who calls herself Shaani (Nimisha Sajayan), and she offers him a lift. She asks him to come to her home and see her husband once, and adds that she is ready to give him the car so that he can go wherever he wants to. Finding this to be a comfortable option, he gets to her apartment, only to find himself locked inside one of the rooms. It is later revealed that Sharath and Shaani has other plans for him. It seems to be motivated by money in the beginning, but there seems to be something different about these two. Yet, the need to save a house from being taken away by the bank seems to be a priority. But they don’t seem to know that Adhi has no money. How can any of them get what they want at this stage?

The defence of Innale Vare :: The movie doesn’t exaggerate things, and seems to go on without adding the unnecessary things including those highly emotional and romantic songs which would have been there for the taking. The tension and anxiety are maintained most of the time, and there are enough twists to keep things going around here. There is a certain amount of mystery about a lot of things around here, and the same is solved in the end, as different sides seem to come together. The idea about how technology can be used to make a person disappear by impersonating him or her will also keep us interested – Cold Case had also dealt with some part of the same, and this one takes it to another level. The messages from this type of movies might to be more careful about what we choose to do, no matter which side we are on, for even the most social ones can suffer – it is also easy to misunderstand someone. Yet, the movie’s main message seems to be that if we try to know people, everyone is good, as it seemed to be in most of the movies of the same director that came much earlier.

The claws of flaw :: The movie surely had a lot to do with its premise, and it doesn’t manage to come up with enough on most occasions. It seems to have struggled hard to make it a feel-good movie, wandering a long way away from where it seemed to be heading in the earlier stages. For an effective thriller, this one needed to keep a certain amount of its darkness as an interesting element which contributes throughout its run. There is almost no intensity with this thriller, and the characters seem to be not motivated enough to do most of the things – they seem to let things go on without trying hard. It is also too long with its content which is not strong enough to withstand time. The final twist and ending could have used some polishing, even if the purpose was to leave with a happy finish. There are too many repetitions around here too, and predictability also has a role to play. Some of the moments are shown just for the sake of being there, and in the process, it elongates the movie to a length that would have been stronger for more content.

The performers of the soul :: Asif Ali who finally has his first direct OTT release, does a good job, as things happen around his character. It is not that much of a big or challenging role though. It is good to see Antony Varghese in a role with a difference, which he seems to find okay. Nimisha Sajayan disappoints for most part of the movie though, in a work which seems to be unnatural. Even for the audience, she seems to be overacting in front of the police in scenes, but the cops within the film don’t seem to find it so – there is also that certain expression she seems to maintain, which doesn’t suit here, as much as in her earlier movies. Rony David is really good in another supporting role, and Irshad does the police job well again. Reba Monica John’s role is unfortunately a little bit too small, but she proves to be suitable in that one. Athulya Chandra does job well, as she seems to reflect the character in concern really well. Nandu is there in a small role, and so are a number of performers who make the smaller contributions.

How it finishes :: The fact that the director switches from feel-good movies like Sunday Holiday, Vijay Superum Pournamiyum and Mohan Kumar Fans, the effect seems to be lesser than what the genre deserved. His first movie and the only thriller, Bicycle Thieves was one of the worst thrillers which graced Malayalam movie industry with a twist which was as dumb as it could get. This one is surely much better than that, but one has to wonder about the purpose of making feel-good thrillers – most of the time, such combinations form a strange paradox which is not acceptable. When actors play actors, there seems to be something lacking too, and the same was seen in movies like Driving Licence too. But the makers do manage to bring things together as the movie nears the end, and this seems to be the kind of thriller which would also make the family audience happy, as such light thrillers are not easy to find. Well, if this kind of thrills happen in real life, there would be terror guaranteed, but not that much in this case.

Release date: 8th June 2022 (Sony LIV)
Running time: 136 minutes
Directed by: Jis Joy
Starring: Antony Varghese, Asif Ali, Nimisha Sajayan, Reba Monica John, Rony David, Nandu, Irshad, Athulya Chandra, Anand Bal, Siddique Ismail

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Koode

Posted on August 26, 2018 by Dr. Tennyson

What is the movie about? :: Joshua (Prithviraj Sukumaran) was working in the Middle East for years until he managed to get a call from his family to return to his home at the outskirts of Ooty. In a flashback, it is revealed that Aloshy (Renjith), his wife Lily (Maala Parvathy) and son Joshua are overjoyed at the birth of a girl child in the family. But that happiness is short-lived, as the child is ill, and to take care of her, Aloshy who is a mechanic in a small town in the highlands will have to sale most of his possessions. It is due to the same reason that Joshua had to travel to the Middle East to make money without finishing his tenth standard, where he was already performing really bad. He spends most of his youth in the Gulf area, separated from his family while his sister Jennifer (Nazriya Nazim) struggles to make her way through the disease and reach college level.

So, what happens with the events to follow? :: It turns out that the incident which caused the return of Joshua to Kerala is the death of his sister, whom he hadn’t got an opportunity to see for a very long time. But after returning home, he does have that chance, but it is only her ghost that he encounters. It is through a journey together with her that Joshua discovers the border between love and duty. He comes across his childhood friend Sophie (Parvathy) whom he falls in love with, and also Krishnan (Roshan Mathew) who was Jennifer’s love interest at college. He also meets his old PT teacher Ashraf (Atul Kulkarni). These meetings make him delay his return to the Middle East, and think about staying back with his people. But is there enough to make him feel at home, considering the fact that there hasn’t been one for him for such a long time?

The defence of Koode :: The visuals of highranges contribute nicely to make things better. The songs are nice, with good visualization to go with them. The sadness in the movie feels real, and the depression in more or less haunting. It has the ability to make us feel close to the emotions of each character that is seen in the movie. The beauty of nature that surrounds this particular world makes one feel better, and after a month of its release, has us wondering if this is that part of nature that we have lost in the recent floods. The emotions that are shown in the movie reflects our own outside the big screen. To add to it, the relationship between a brother and a sister is shown in one of the most of lovable ways that it can exist, even without the existence of one of them. The melancholy is very much strong with this one.

The claws of flaw :: The first half of the movie is too slow. There is a certain dragging that can be seen going on here. Koode does take a certain amount of time to become strong, and we can see that the emotional side only gets better in the second half. The heroine’s situation also seemed to be custom made for her to escape with the hero, rather than to have the same develop further. There is no shortage of cliches here, and the ghost itself could have been better. There are moments when you feel that life is absurd too, but that would have to do more with the reflection of the scenery with what we have in Kerala’s highlands these days after those devastating floods. This is also too long a movie, as the material is less, with not enough present to stretch the same.

The performers of the soul :: Prithviraj leads the way here as the tormented protagonist who wonders if it is love or duty that guides him through his path. It is his transformation that the whole movie is about, and it is his character who undergoes the change that was in waiting – the character begins with randomly performing his duty to a person who does the same out of love rather than anything else; this is the one change that takes everything to the next level for him. This is one character to whom we feel sympathetic from the beginning itself, and they also have the perfect child actor in Zubin to make things happen during the flashback scenes. Atul Kulkarni from the original movie, Happy Journey is also there, and we can feel that certain representation is here. He was part of some memorable Malayalam movies, and this role is short in comparison, but touches our heart.

Further performers of the soul :: Prithviraj plays a person with martyr complex, desiring the feeling of being a martyr, seeking out suffering or persecution because it either feeds a psychological need. But Parvathy’s character is no lesser martyr either, as she is caught in the web of her own family from where there seems to be no escape. She does a fantastic job in displaying the helplessness and sadness of the character, pairing with Prithviraj again after My Story and Ennu Ninte Moideen; Qarib Qarib Singlle did make here a bigger star in between. The child actor who plays her in the flashback is also perfectly suited. Nazriya makes a return to cinema after four years, and does her usual cute act, and nothing more. We do feel a certain amount of happiness to have her back too. Ranjith-Parvathy duo of parents is also very good to watch. Roshan Mathew plays a character which comes easily to him as young star too, resembling that of Aanandam and Kadam Katha. We see Rockstar debutante plus singer Siddharth Menon and Darshana Rajendran being notable here too.

How it finishes :: Koode brings the original Marathi movie, Happy Journey back to the big screen, and it seems to show the same spirit which was there. The movie is surely better than Anjali Menon’s much appreciated Bangalore Days, as this feels closer to the heart and is more serious in comparison. We have more than just family and relationships here, with love, compassion, duty, loneliness and hope – it is the same hope that all of us in Kerala have about rebuilding our state. With this review, I am also placing a request for all of the readers to contribute to the Chief Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund, for it hurts to have the people of this part of our nation struggling to get back to their feet. It is emotional for us to have been gone through all these, and witnessing our brothers and sisters in need; the same even hinders our thinking process. Any amount is not less or high – please go to the below link, read, and contribute as you can. Our Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi and our Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan along with the Chief Ministers of other states have reiterated the need to be with the state of Kerala during these devastating floods.
Visit and donate at: https://donation.cmdrf.kerala.gov.in/

Release date: 14th July 2018
Running time: 155 minutes
Directed by: Anjali Menon
Starring: Prithviraj Sukumaran, Nazriya Nazim, Parvathy, Roshan Mathew, Maala Parvathy, Ranjith Balakrishnan, Siddharth Menon, Atul Kulkarni, Hakkim Shah, Sarath Chandran, Arun Sunny, Darshana Rajendran, Bhadra Sandeep, Devan, Shambu Menon, Sajitha Madathil, Joy Badlani, Prajwal Prasad, Basil Poulose, Santhosh Keezhattoor, Nandhu Pothuval, Zubin N, Baby Mira, Mithuna Rajan