This was a movie I picked because a) it has Jayasurya, b) it was on HotStar, and c) it looked like something that I could watch while doing dishes and being in and out of the room. And all of these things were true! Especially the last.
What was up with early 2000s Malayalam cinema???? Was there some kind of huge regressive swing in society or something? Seems like most films I have seen from that era (obviously not an exhaustive sample) have a lesson about women being obedient, divorce just meaning a wife has to be reminded of her “proper” role, and men who will learn to be better and give you little scraps of kindness if you give them time. This film isn’t as bad as Veruthe Oru Bharya but is slightly worse than Innathe Chintha Vishayam. And nowhere near as good as even something like How Old Are You? which ended with a reaffirmation of the marriage no matter how horrible it seemed, but at least had thinking considering people who weren’t merely spouting nonsensical platitudes instead of talking like humans talk!
I spent this entire movie wanting to shake our “hero” into being sensible but instead of doing that, all the characters onscreen just kept saying “oh, you have to try to understood him and make accommodations”. Because that’s what it’s all about, right? The men are foolish and weak and silly, but it’s okay, because it is a woman’s job to accommodate and forgive.
(Look how happy all his friends are to support his fantasy! Instead of giving him a good shake and telling him he was crazy)
It’s not just the values that are old-fashioned, EVERYTHING is!!!! The camera movements and editing and lighting and set design and all of it are sooooooooooooooooooooo boring. And you don’t have to be boring just because you have no money! Or even no advanced technology. I was comparing it with Classmates (which looks like a dream of progressive values in comparison), and it had the same problems with no costume budget and clunky immovable cameras that needed high lighting at all times, but there were still moments that stuck in my head, when interesting outside of the box thinking was used to change what we were seeing.
The two things go hand in hand, really, if the message of the film is “old values are best, just adjust and make the best of it” then obviously it will be made by people who also believe in that approach to filmmaking. I just looked up the director, Saji Surendran and it looks like he started in TV serials, then moved on to movies that were thinly disguised remakes of other movies, most of them revolving around husbands behaving badly and wife’s learning their “lesson”. Lovely!
And now you are saying “wait, if this movie was so bad, why did she watch it?” I refer you back to the “a) it has Jayasurya, b) it was on HotStar, and c) it looked like something that I could watch while doing dishes and being in and out of the room” reasons. I scrolled past tons of high quality films on Hotstar, but I didn’t have the time/energy this weekend for something high quality, so I was shooting for midlevel and unfortunately missed and landed on “terrible”.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
Jayasurya is about to finish his MBA program but is constantly dreaming of being married, having a perfect traditional wife to bring him coffee in the morning and wear saris and jasmine in her hair and all of that. He begs his parents to get him married, and they agree partly because they feel guilty about how he has struggled with their separation (his parents live in two separate apartments next door to each other, he has a room in each apartment and shuttles between when home on vacation). They arrange his marriage with Bhama who is also very young. They have a hard time connecting because she isn’t his dream woman and he tries to be authoritarian and strict because a wife is supposed to be afraid of her husband. And then his parents find out that he lied about his test results and in fact failed out of his MBA, there is a family fight, and he announces he and Bhama are moving out. They move in with his good (female) friend from college Samvrutha Sunil. Jayasurya still can’t get a job because he doesn’t have his degree, Bhama can’t find work either and doesn’t know how to cook and is getting jealous of Samvrutha Sunil. Meanwhile, back home, Jayasurya’s parents Siddique and Rekha have reunited thanks to the interference of Nedimudi, their relative. Jayasurya and Bhama are planning a divorce, but when Jayasurya’s parents tell them they are back together, Jayasurya confesses to Bhama that he never actually wanted the marriage, he just thought him getting married would help to bring his parents back together and it has worked. Bhama and Jayasurya go ahead with their secret divorce plans, but then change their mind at the last minute when Bhama gives a big speech and confesses she is sorry for her suspicions of Samvrutha.
So, let’s break this down. Immature man wants perfect beautiful sex slave/regular slave kind of wife. He marries a young woman who is not eager for marriage and has a career of her own, but tries to make the best of it. And then is angry when she isn’t the perfect woman he pictured even though she is trying her best. She is jealous of his closeness with his friends since he never spends any time with her, and frustrated that he makes huge decisions for them (like, moving them out of his parents’ house) without talking to her, oh and also didn’t tell her that his parents were separated before they got married. And then she learns that this whole thing was just about reuniting his parents, two people who she hadn’t even met before the wedding, and she was just a means to an end. And then, naturally, SHE apologizes for all this and takes responsibility for fixing the relationship. Because it is always the woman’s fault if the marriage fails.
We see that with Siddique and Rekha too. Their separation ends because Siddique is sick and Rekha is guilted into taking care of him. That’s it. That’s all. Siddique didn’t have to do anything, Rekha had to be reminded of her wifely duties and then take them up again. Because it is up to the wife to take care of the husband, not vice versa.
(You see why this felt so nice? She is taking care of him and HE NOTICES!!!! Doesn’t just accept it as his due)
Heck, even non-wife women have this responsibility! Jayasurya’s relationship with Samvrutha isn’t romantic, but she still (naturally) makes him food and feeds him and smooths over all his little life hurdles, because that’s what women do. And of course his mother gives him everything he wants, because he is her precious perfect princely son. GAAAAAH!!!!!
What really kills me is the scene where Bhama goes in for a job interview. The (sort of) meet cute for Bhama and Jayasurya was when she was an RJ and he called in and they got into a shouting match about young marriages. Bhama was fired and then goes in for an interview with another channel, where she is told that as the leading channel, they have a responsibility to uphold “Sanskar” and it wasn’t “sanskar”y to reply to her caller. Yes, even if he abused her.
See, the rest of the movie could theoretically be just about this one marriage. And I don’t super disagree with what they did with the one marriage. It is not unheard of for people from unsettled homes to idealize marriage and children and the thought of starting a home of their own, Jayasurya’s dream of the ideal beautiful wife makes sense in the context of his parents’ separation. And Bhama didn’t want to get married, but her mother was set on her being married before 21, and so she got excited about the idea of marrying a boy close to her own age instead of the usual “settled” older types. Interesting set up there for a young woman who is ready for a youthful equal marriage with someone closer to her, and a young man who dreams of having the authority of a husband without having earned it through age or accomplishments.
(So, if Nazriya had refused Fahad and held out for a young man she could goof around with like she does with her cousins. But then learned even that young man was a horrible stick in the mud because all husbands SUCK)
Most of their married fights revolve around that, Bhama wants a friend, someone to talk with and have fun with, but Jayasurya keeps splitting up his relaxed friend attitude with his close friend group and only giving Bhama the formal “husband” attitude. The moments when Jayasurya relaxes around her and Bhama is happy with him show promise for this relationship. And of course the shock of moving out of his parents’ home and all of the rest of it just adds to the stress on them.
But of course it’s not just this one couple, it is all of society which have all agreed on the “right” way to be. Jayasurya’s parents should get back together and it is his mother’s responsibility to make it happen. Bhama and Jayasurya should get married, and it’s her responsibility there too.
And then there is the last minute twist of Jayasurya saying it was all a plan to reunite his parents. Which would redeem SO MUCH of his character if it felt at all true. It’s one thing to have a movie with a young husband who struggles to be connected to this marriage, to feel connected to his wife, who is seemingly hurtful and needlessly unkind, and then we learn it was because he didn’t actually want this marriage, it was all a plan and he was keeping himself purposefully separated from his wife, only now he has fallen in love without planning it and also feels super guilty. But it’s something else to have this movie which showed us over and over again his excitement over all the trappings of marriage and the “perfect” wife, and then at the last minute say “no, not really! Somehow that was all fake, even his dreams, he was just faking them for unclear reasons”. So instead of feels like even the filmmakers realized this character was just irredeemable and tried to put in a last minute switch and failed because it made no sense.
Or maybe they succeeded? The Internet tells me that this total mess of a film had a decent box office run! Despite bland songs, uninteresting visuals, regressive and illogical plot, the whole thing. So either people in Kerala were really hungry for movies about men getting everything they wanted because women sacrificed and adjusted, or were just hungry for movies and this was the kind of quality they had gotten used to.
dontcallitbollywood 
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I’m convinced — I’ll skip this one.
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I haven’t watched this movie – Jayasurya appeared in a string of bad movies around that time, so mostly gave his movies a miss those days BUT I think all this regressive lecturing is because divorce rate in Kerala started peaking around that time. So these filmmakers probably thought they should try and fix it using their powers so maybe if they told women what to do/feel, it would all work out well. Malayalam movies were always (in)famous for the misogyny in the 90s. Anyhow, divorce rates in Kerala are the highest in the country acc. to https://www.thequint.com/news/india/kerala-has-highest-number-of-divorces-five-cases-every-hour. I personally think its because of more men/women deciding to get out of bad marriages.
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Thank you! I think you answered a puzzle for me, I bet it was the high divorce rate that lead to these horrible movies. Well, the news of the high divorce rate getting around and getting everyone excited. And it also answers another puzzle for me, why so many of the good Malayalam films treat divorce as a possibility, unlike the Hindi movies where it sometimes feels like no one has ever even heard of the concept.
Also, I am with you, my reaction to a high divorce rate is “Wow, that must mean the people who are still married really really want to be married! Marriages are stronger in Kerala than anywhere else”.
On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 5:39 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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That’s interesting that Kerala has the highest divorce rate in India. Do you think the high number of families with one member abroad earning the money to support the family, may be a factor in this phenomenon?
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I was thinking something similar, perhaps the high economy in general, since often one of the main hurdles to divorce is simply not being able to afford it. Not like lawyers fees and so on, but the complications of splitting households and so on.
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2000s was the period when movie making became more of a business than an art form(the likes of Dileep were starting to make decisions)There was also the influx of satellites channels & people suddenly got the option to watch movies at home-however bad they were. Suddenly making a movie with a familiar face became a profitable venture even for the untalented. The satellite rights would be enough to make a good profit from a shoddy/lazy film. The tv channels were ready to pay any money because they had to build their libraries. Misogynistic they maybe, but 90s movies had some thought behind them unlike the 2000s where some of the films existed only for satellite rights or in an effort to hide the NRI/black money off the books. The stars also became active decision makers and started interfering with the film makers creative decisions, often resulting in a very very stupid movie.
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Yes 2000s produced many terrible films but for me dileep was the saving grace. dileep comedies were the only good entertainment those days. thats why his films were bigger hits than mammootty or mohanlal films that time.His films braught families back to theatre who were drawn away by ‘shakkeela films’. you cant put the blame for all bad things in industry on dileeps head. He became powerful only after producing 20-20 in 2008. and he gave chance to many youngsters like nivin pauly and vineet when he got power
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I don’t think Dileep planned a hostile takeover of Malayalam films. It was a cultural shift in film making brought on by the changing era & he was shrewd enough to use to gain upper hand. His ways of doing that is also questionable. Others followed him.
Yes, Dileep was the family favourite, including my own family’s. I will not go into the obvious,common problems in his movies. But for an actor known for his family/funny man image, his films always always had that below-the-belt, crude adult joke or scene which used to make me cringe even as a teenager. I still prefer his 90s movies which were genuinely funny & more suitable for watching with family.
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So true! Casanova being one of many!
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I agree, 2000s movies were far worse. Dileep’s movies also had this bit about “teaching the heroine a lesson” (apart from crude/vulgar jokes). What I find surprising is 80s movies didn’t have as much misogyny, it is through the Renji Panicker movies that it started creeping in – Commisioner, The King etc.. but yes like you said at least they had a coherent plot and screenplay.
What Dileep started was the horrible trend in which the actor (not the filmmaker) started making creative decisions. And then other stars followed too, which ultimately led to the death in content.
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As you know, I am very new to Malayalam film and have only a superficial knowledge of the industry and a random assortment of films I have watched. I started with the recent classics, OSO and Premam and Bangalore Days. And then I went back to the older classics people told me I “had” to watch, Thoovanithumbikal and so on. And the 80s films and modern films had totally different filming styles, but otherwise seemed connected, strong complicated female characters, relationships that didn’t have to fit in the accepted mode, stars who tried to come second to the story, and so on. Which is why my first late 90s-early 2000s film was such a shock! Because it seemed like this aberration, there was a direct line from the 80s to today, and then this strange record scratch period that made no sense with any of it in between the two.
On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 11:42 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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If u examine the misogyny in older films, which Indian star had a clean filmography. ? atleast heroines in dileep films had something to perform and equal screen space unlike the mammootty mohanlal films of that era which was mostly about worshipping their masculinity. Lets not forget he introduced most of the heroines in malayalam that time who later became big stars(kavya, navya nair, meera jasmine etc).
most of the information about dileeps evil shrewd means inside industry to gain power and control came from news medias after his arrest without any proof. I dont know how much of all these one should trust when a lot of stories were later turned pure lies without any basis..
dileep had good and bad movies on career. But i dont think its fare to write off his entire filmography as bad which has amazing films like kathavaseshan(one of the best malayalam film ever made), joker,sallapam etc and many amazing entertainers which are still popular and enjoyed by lot of people. And seriously is there any actor in new generation or old who could pull off his characters in kunjikkoonan, thilakkam, chanthupottu, etc in similar perfection?
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LOL!
This is a Jayasurya movie, and we’re talking Dileep.
My two cents:-
1.
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/misogyny-behind-dileeps-comic-smokescreen-why-malayalam-cinema-can-do-without-it-53677
the author seems to suggest that almost every film of his is misogynistic (published before the actress attack case)!
2.
Forget that – after years and years of denying any affair with Kavya, on the eve of their wedding, he made a post suggesting that he’s “saving” a woman who’s got a “bad name” because of “him”
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/malayalam/movies/news/Dileeps-reason-to-marry-Kavya-reeks-of-male-chauvinism/articleshow/55636824.cms
Kavya even claimed earlier that Dileep was more a “father figure”!
Wonder what he’ll say when they have a kid – “to keep his lineage,…?”
3.
After the actress attack case and after he knew that he was a suspect, he gave a TV interview where he said he appreciates the courage of the actress – “usually women under such circumstance would either keep quiet or commit suicide”
The police version was that he said it deliberately to cast a doubt on people’s mind about the “character” of the actress (one of his close friends around the same time suggested that the actress must undergo a lie detector test!)
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URG! I was at my parish retreat in my mallu church in Los angeles and the priest is like, ” daughters, forget your parents because your in-laws are your priority and in-laws, love your daughter-in-law more than your daughters”. This literally happened YESTERDAY!! The misogyny in Kerala aint gonna go soon. Its like “sons, do whatever the hell you want because the women in your life will adjust their life for you” BS!
This was honestly such a cringy movie and Jayasurya’s get-up was the worst! Never watch mathai kuzhappakkaranalla. its basically jayasurya and bhama with mukesh. The movie is basically jayasurya and bhama, strangers to mukesh, offering him marital advice in getting together with his life, with another CRINGE love story between jayasurya and bhama.
I am so proud to be born and associated as a Mallu because the youngsters of this generation know what to prioritize; no more saving the family honor. Divorce, then Divorce it is!
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Oh blech! This is the kind of thing that turns women into bitter angry (awesome) feminists later in life.
A story I decided not to include because I didn’t know if people would believe me was from when I was back in college. My roommate’s family was from Hyderabad and we were talking about marriage for some reason, one of her cousins was getting married or something, and she was saying how after marriage there is always an “adjustment” period, which made sense to me. And then she said, “because the wife has to adjust to the husband”. My response was “sure, and the husband has to adjust to the wife”. And she was firm that no, just the wife adjusts. The husband doesn’t.
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The charitable interpretation of this statement is that it’s the wife who moves away from the home and family she has known to join a new family and home, and has to get used to their ways and learn how to fit in — i.e., “adjust” — while the husband is just continuing in the same family and home he has known from birth, so doesn’t need to learn any new ways or “adjust.”
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One of the reasons for the high divorce rate in Kerala is that Malayali women are financially independent.We are educated and employed and no longer need to stay in a bad marriage for the sake of the children.Thanks to the British missionaries starting schools in Kerala, girls have been getting educated and gainfully employed outside their homes for the past 3-4 generations. Plus Kerala culture was matrilineal in the past -inheriting through the mother’s line (even the royal house).Many of the higher castes practised the custom of Sambandham where the husband could be set aside.He would never have any rights to his children -or obligation to support them.Patriarchy has been the established order only from the turn of the century.So the concept of divorce is not shocking enough as it is in the North.Yes, it still raises a few eyebrows but you are not ostracized.
That said, the movie was horrible.I think Saji Surendran is Kerala’s answer to David Dhawan.You will find the same concepts in David’s movies -cheating husbands,wives being fooled beacuse they are unreasonable/dictators.All told with some mediocre comedy.
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I need to rewatch Ramante Eden Thottam to get the bad taste out of my mouth, a movie in which a wife decided to get a divorce because she would be happier alone than with her husband and she had the financial independence to do it. So satisfying!
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The movie was bad but you all have such a interesting discussion thanks to it. I learnt a lot.
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So my time watching it wasn’t wasted!
On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 3:06 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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You have watched my top 3 worst movies in theaters – Veruthe oru Barya, Ivar Vivahatharaayaal, Sahayathrikakku Snehapoorvam
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I am so glad I watched this movie on Hotstar. It wasn’t great, but at least I didn’t pay anything extra for it.
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