Monday, January 20, 2014

Drishyam. A visual treat through power of the script

This weekend, a trip to my brother-in-law's family at New Jersey. Just to visit them, after they returned from India, and come back the next day. That was the orginial plan. After reaching Metuchen, NJ, we found out that Drishyam is playing at Big Cinemas in Edison. We all got excited at first, particularly me, as I am an ardent fan of Lalettan (Mohanlal, duh!), and there were lot of rave reviews about this movie. 
I have been watching lot of promos and following the movie since its inception. The movie team had portrayed it as a family movie. And with the latest reviews, there were comments that the movie had a surprise element to it. But I felt that the subject of the movie is not "kid" friendly. It meant that we cannot take our 10 year old daughter for that movie. I was reluctant to watch the movie with my daughter.

While having the sumptous lunch at Aroma Palace (thats for another post :)), we met a friend of my BIL's, who had seen the movie. He said the movie is good and can be seen with the kids. He had two daughters, one of whom was around my daughter's age. So we finally decided to take the tickets for the 3:55 PM show.

On the way home, we dropped at Big Cinemas to find that 3:55 PM show was sold out. And there was a 7 PM and 10:55 PM shows left. As we had to return the same day, I persuaded my brother in law to take tickets for his family alone for the 7 PM show. And then we returned to his house. While having the tea an hour later, I was not feeling quite right. A Lalettan movie. Much appreciated. Right in front of me. And I am neglecting it. What a crime! :)

"Lets watch the movie!" I proclaimed. :) Lets watch it. Myself and my BIL drove to Big Cinemas again, to find the 7 PM show sold out! Come on! No Way!

"Wait, " the girl at the counter said. "We are opening another show at 6:50. There is a lot of demand for the movie."

YES!!!! AWESOME!!!

To cut the long story short, we saw the movie.

The movie was awesome! Very well scripted. Very well executed. It is a Jeethu Joseph movie than a Lalettan movie. The director and the script writer (who happens to be the same dude) gets the full credit. Lalettan did really good. The character Georgekutty was in his comfort zone, and for sure, no one else could have rendered it so seemlessly. 
Is the movie a family drama? YES. Is the movie a thriller? YES. Does the movie touch upon social issues? YES. And these YESes are the beauty of the movie. The script has knitted these three angles well together. 

I do not want to narrate the theme or the story here, but I would warn my friends of not taking smaller kids (say, less than 9 years) to the movie. In my opinion, they are not yet ready for the subject yet. For that matter, I wouldn't rate that as a complete family movie. 

My daughter had lot of questions. We did welcome those questions and handled those very carefully. My wife did a wonderful job at that. There were lot of take aways for the young kids, especially girls. And parents of young girls. IMO, you should take your younger (10 and above) kids to the movie. Teenagers would understand the concept, but you might get lots of WHY questions from the younger ones. You may need to handle them properly. 

All the actors did their job well. The girls who portrayed the characters of Lalettan's duaghters were marvellous, especially the little one. One feather for the movie was the characterisation of Kalabhavan Shajon. He plays Sahadevan, an arrogant police constable, totally out of his comfort zone. Hats off to him.

The another aspect to applaude is Sujith Vasudev's well choreographed cinematography.

All in all, what makes the movie so thrilling is the narrative style. This is pretty fresh for an Indian movie.

So, my friends, this is a must watch. In a theatre. Or wait for the DVD. It is worth it. And not to spoil the fun, don't read any reviews or the story line. Including this one :)


(The Punjabi owner of the theatre was at the door thanking each and every one of us for coming to watch the movie. He said he hasn't experienced such and crowd and enthusiasm for any movie he has played in recent years) :)