In Malayalam cinema, we have the wonderful Tovino Thomas flying high in Minnal Murali alongside the Mammootys, Mohanlals, Fahadh Faasils, and Dulquer Salmaans.
Have you noticed? In Bollywood, the old guard still monopolises the precincts of superstardom like baap ka maal [which in many cases, it is, considering the nepotism angle]. In the South, the young are allowed to nibble into the edges of superstardom with none of the veterans feeling threatened.
So we have the wonderful Tovino Thomas flying high in Minnal Murali alongside the Mammootys, Mohanlals, Fahadh Faasils, and Dulquer Salmaans.
Three recent South Indian films were almost completely manned by fresh faces. And they are were all delightful.
In director Vineeth Srinivasan’s Hridayam in Malayalam, there are at least 45 prominent and peripheral characters, and yet Hridayam is really about just three people and a messianic figure who changes their lives.
Selva, played by a relatively unknown young actor Kalesh Ramanand, is the centrifugal force that manoeuvres the plot and its protagonist to a equipoised closure. Selva is a young, enthusiastic, innocent reformist. He educates and feeds migrant students, coaches into the success zone in their classroom, and plays the role of a guardian angel. And yes, he in love with a girl who irons clothes on the street. A pressing engagement, so to speak.
The light is partially extinguished from this brightly-lit sunny film after Selvi is gone. No wonder Arun [Pranav Mohanlal, son of the legendary Mohanlal] names his son Selvi at the end. This film is not about Selvi. It is about Arun, a migrant from Kerala studying in an engineering college in Chennai, facing all the curves and dips, highs and lows, of a migrant student, giving nothing away of his inner self-doubts and questionings [this deadpan-ness suits Pranav].
At one point, in this rugged handsome love triangle [actually, it is as irresponsible to call it a love triangle as to call Devdas a love triangle], Arun changes colours, becomes the college ruffian, a portable version of Arjun Reddy, so to ‘spit.’ Happily, Arun soon tires of this aggressive phase, and the screenplay brings Arun back on the rails without tomtomming its virtues from a high moral ground.
No one is a hero here. The film judges no one. Darshana’s jealous rage at her lifelong love Arun’s wedding venue [where a piping-hot clothes iron pops up as a potentially ruinous weapon] is one of the most vulnerable moments of lost love I have seen in Indian cinema. Indeed, Hridayam follows the rhythm and idiom of the heart closely. But there is a pronounced intellectual faculty underlining the growth of Arun, from bucolic to brash to honest, and finally, perhaps a little wise too.
Outwardly this may seem to be yet another coming-of-age rom-com. But there is a lot more at work here than what meets the eye. What lies underneath is what propels the film to the level of a greatness that many may think it has not earned. But that is only an illusion. Vineet Srineevasan uses personal, intimate memories to underline Arun’s maturation. The mix of memories and moments from the here-and-now mesh in a pastiche of pain and release.
I specially liked the ‘Selva’ episode; no offence to the actor who plays the messianic character, but it needed someone with an iconic image. Pranav Mohanlal in the lead gives a leashed performance. His limited range is never allowed to surface to challenge his dominance in the script. The two actresses who form his love interests, Darshana Rajendran and Kalyani Priyadarshan, are far more in control of their craft, bringing to their lovelorn characters a refreshing individuality that scoffs at their stereotypical placement in the plot.
Come to think of it, that is true of the film as a whole. It seems like yet another film about growing up. But it is not only the curly haired hero who has grown up at the end. From Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai to Hridayam, the coming-of-age genre in Indian cinema has also matured.
Chidambaram’s Jan.E.Man, again in Malayalam, is the craziest, most adorable film of the year. Or for that matter, any year. Basil Joseph, who directed the superhero spectacle Minnal Murali to sky-high glory, comes down to earth with a thundering thud. He exchanges hats to face the camera this time. Joseph plays Joymon, a loser in Canada freezing to death in the chill of friendless solitude. Even his mother does not have time or patience to talk to him when he calls her.
Still from Jan.E.Man
So what does this loser do? He takes the first flight home to Kochi as he does not want to spend his birthday with his college friends [who, by the way, have either forgotten him or would like to forget him].What happens thereafter as Joymon lands in Kochi has to be seen to be believed. And after seeing the wild, zigzagging twists and turns in the plot, I was unable to believe that this little miracle of a movie was actually happening.
Joymon and his two reluctant friends Sambath [Arjun Ashokan] and Dr Faizal [Ganapathi S Poduval] head to Sambath’s home, where the entire family [reluctantly] joins in the birthday party for a man they hardly know or like. Joymon’s myopic self interest takes a solid thrashing when the house opposite his party-venue has a sudden death in the family.
As the bereaved go into a deep mourning, Joyomon insists on his balloons, candles, and music, while the dead man’s pregnant daughter wails in the darkness. And to hell with the sensitivities of the grieving neighbours!
The eccentric screenplay weaves in and out of the two homes facing one another in a seamless fusion of frivolous fun and serious grief. The chaotic landscape is somehow never over-painted. Characters come and go but never crowd the scenario. Each character is memorable, my most favourite being the self-appointed security guard of a man into illicit activities.
While Joseph’s Joyon is a classic study of intellectual and emotional imperviousness, my favourite characters are Monichan [Balu Verghese], the estranged son of the deceased patriarch in the house opposite, who has the most heartbreaking meltdown scene of the film. Monichon’s sister has taken to sisterhood [a nun] while his closest friend is a lout who is constantly creating a rift between Monichon and his family.
The tiniest of cameos is painted in bold, striking strokes. There are no big and small characters in Jan.E.Man. They are all what they are: people caught in the heads-and-tails whirlpool of partying and mourning, not aware where one ends and the other begins.
Admittedly, there are slivers in the plot where I felt the writer-director was piling it on too thick. The quest for a climax gets too conscious. Birthing a baby in the chaos is a cliché, which could have been avoided. But the larger picture makes the smaller follies eminently excusable. Jan.E-Man is huge fun without resorting to gimmicks or stunts. It is a film of amiable anarchy. The world of family chaos has never been more scattered. Embrace the chaos, and you are in for a whale of a time.
Sathish Selvakumar’s Bachelor in Tamil is special in its own kinky way. It is the first anti-romantic ‘love story’ I have seen in Indian cinema. The hero, named Darling [you read that right], a young horny man from Coimbatore, the typical small-towner whose eyes automatically fall on a woman’s shoulder-level when saying hello, is staying in Bengaluru as a roomie with a bunch of seemingly aimless friends.
Still from Bachelor
Significantly, the writers [Sathish Selvakumar, KM Rasheduzzaman Rafi] make a big deal of Darling’s arrogant self-regard. He is the kind of loiterer who wants his food a particular way on the plate, his juice chilled in a particular corner of the refrigerator, which his flatmates have indulgently reserved for dear Darling.
Straightaway, we get a clear enough picture of the kind of guy our ‘hero’ is. Scumbag would be a fair description. When scumbag Darling meets Subu [Divyabharathi], the sweet sensible girl from Chennai, sparks fly, mainly in Darling’s underwear. He is soon angling for her sexual attentions, which she eventually gives after he looks after her through what looks like a COVID-19 attack.
Sex done, Darling tells Subu to abort their unborn twin children. I knew this was coming. This is just what one would expect from the trashy small-towner who probably thinks getting women into bed is the libidinous equivalent of conquering the Himalaya.
Subu and Darling’s conflicts are cannily constructed with the camera trailing through no fixed patterns, lensing the doomed relationship through a zig-zag lane, replicating Darling’s moral disorder.
For a first-time director, Sathish Selvakumar’s command over the language of emotional chaos is applaudable. He deep-dives into Darling’s anarchic morals. But he does not disregard Subu’s bruised, battered, and abused feelings as she watches the father of her unborn children [sonography shows twins] turn into an Arjun Reddy high on something far more dangerous than alcohol.
Darling is high on testosterone. This may seem crude, but there is no other way to out it: Darling thinks with his dick. Musician-turned-actor GV Prakash Kumar plays Darling with an assured arrogance, a nerve-piercing smugness that comes naturally to young men who dream big and watch porn on their friend’s laptop when everyone is asleep.
Divyabharathi, as the wronged impregnated partner, is wonderfully expressive without overdoing the emotional eruptions. The supporting cast, specially the rowdies who rally around Darling to rid him of his responsibilities as a future father, is also suitable competent.
The second half of the film, where Darling must prove himself medically impotent to escape the paternity suit, spreads itself all over the place, diminishing the impact of the otherwise original and damning indictment of male toxicity. The court proceedings between Darling and Subu end with Subu literally showing Darling her middle lass, and walking off into an uncertain future as an unmarried mother. Better a life alone then one with a partner who is vexingly self-important but, in truth, impotent in every sense.
Remarkably, the young actors in the above film exude a kind of non-ostentatious self confidence that is at odds with the dramatic energy of the old guard. It is time for a change. We cannot have 70-year old superstars being paired with 19-year old heroines any longer.
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He’s been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.
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