Trying very hard to keep my eyes open and looking forward to spending tomorrow just being sick in bed, but I will plow on and finish the SPOILER review of this movie, because it is just so interesting! Oh, and I encourage you to read the spoilers in this case if you want. Probably most of you can’t see it in theaters, and the ideas it brings up are universal and really interesting to discuss. Or at least, I think so.

Whole Plot in Two Paragraphs:

Suraj Venjarammoodu is a traffic inspector and a Prithviraj fan with an adoring young son and a nagging wife. Prithviraj is a movie star almost finished with his next movie, planning to take a month off to travel to the US with his wife so she can have medical tests. The producers plan to start building the complex set for the final action sequence of the film while Prithviraj is gone, only they learn that they need Prithviraj’s drivers licence along with everyone else’s as part of the paperwork for approval to use the location where they want to film. Problem is, Prithviraj lost his licence and then the police lost his application for renewal, and now he doesn’t have time to go through normal channels. Suraj is approached by ambitious young politician and Prithviraj friend Saiju Kurup for help and readily agrees, simply back date the paperwork and he will have the licence in a few days. He has a request, that Prithviraj stop by the station for 2 minutes just to meet in person. Prithviraj agrees but someone tips off the press, by the time he arrives it is already a big story that he doesn’t have a licence and has been driving illegally. He bursts into the room and angrily tells off Suraj while his son watches, heartbroken. In his own anger, Suraj confronts Prithviraj in front of the cameras and demands he fill out the applications properly for a new licence. Both men go home and cool down, but then Prithviraj’s producer pressures him and forces him to send his wife off alone while he stays to fill out the licence paperwork. And that same night, a group of Prithviraj fans stone Suraj’s house, hitting his son in the head with the stone. Drunk Prithviraj calls up Suraj and threatens him as Suraj is driving to the hospital with his son, both men declare their intention of going to war. INTERVAL

Prithviraj’s rival actor Suresh Krishna was behind the attack, trying to set up Prithviraj as a villain and further delay the release of his next film. It works, Suraj files a police report against Prithviraj. His excitable wife Miya George embellishes his story claiming that it was a massive mob, and that she saw Saiju Kurup with them. The actors union gets involved, talks to Prithviraj and acknowledges this was probably coordinated by one of “theirs” but it would be best not to talk about that in public. Prithviraj is inspired and goes out to fight back with a statement painting Suraj as a crazed fan who is making this up. Suraj, furious, insists on Prithviraj doing an oral exam which is recorded live by news channels. Prithviraj passes and Suraj and his family are humiliated. Before the road test, Prithviraj gets a call that his wife’s tests were positive and she is going in for surgery the next day. His driver warns him that Suraj will do everything he can to delay, and sure enough Suraj nitpicks everything. Prithviraj finally gives up in anger and goes to talk to his fans who are waiting to promise he will never drive again, his film will be delayed, but nothing matters because he has to go to his wife. His fans attack Suraj, Prithviraj turns back and saves him. The two men finally talk honestly, Prithviraj learns that Suraj was sincere at the start and it was others who tipped off the media. Suraj comes to understand that Prithviraj didn’t send his fans after him. In the end, Prithviraj takes Suraj and his family back to his house, the actors union shows up again to explain that they have found evidence that Suresh sent the fans to attack. He finally leaves for the airport, only to be stopped by a drunkard who had been hanging about his house and reveals he has the lost drivers licence. THE END.

There’s a lot there. At the heart of it is the same question that Shahrukh’s Fan asks, what do stars owe to fans and what do fans owe to stars? The answer is an impossible riddle, stars owe to their fans to be always more than human, and fans owe to stars to understand they are only human. Suraj needs Prithviraj to be gracious and kind to him, to be perfect. And Prithviraj needs his fans to understand that his wife is sick, he is stressed, he may not be perfect every minute of every day. That’s what their conversation at the end finally reaches, Suraj has learned to see everything that Prithviraj is struggling with, that his simple effort to get a drivers licence is about his wife’s illness, saving his next movie, all these things Suraj didn’t know about. And Prithviraj seeing that the little meaningless two minute meeting for him was a huge deal for Suraj.

What I find very interesting is how that central conflict is magnified by everyone around them. And I think that is the real point of the film, the way every little thing that happens to a movie star effects so many other things, even just getting a drivers licence can become a major issue. Fans are fine, fans are healthy and happy, it’s the people who just don’t care and suddenly do care that are the problem.

Suraj is a devoted fan, but an unaligned one. In Kerala in particular, the fan associations are massive and organized. Suraj isn’t part of one of those, his fandom isn’t his job or his life, it is where he goes to escape the pressure of his job and life. And he has a small connection to Prithviraj which is all he wants, a phone number for him that he uses to send messages about how much he liked his film. He doesn’t want more than that, doesn’t want to be a bother. He agrees to do this favor for Prithviraj because it is logical and his superior also finds it a reasonable request, it’s even be asked for by a politician Suraj had voted for. This wasn’t an over the top gesture of fandom. And his request was specifically a request, non-conditional, he just wants to meet Prithviraj. Basically, he’s not crazy. He’s a nice normal person doing a nice normal thing and making a nice normal request.

Most of the people are nice normal calm people. Prithviraj is normal, the representatives of the actors union (playing themselves!) are nice normal people, his director is a nice normal people. They are normal because they care, they care enough to understand how this film world works and know what is a normal and abnormal request. The problem comes when outsiders get involved and ramp things up.

Suraj’s wife is the most obvious one. She wasn’t a terribly devoted Prithviraj fan at the start, and she leaped on the idea of inserting herself into the story without fully grasping how it could spin out of control and so quickly ricochet back on them. But there is also Prithviraj’s producer who complains about his 30 day break, about the budget issues, and forces Prithviraj to stay in India and fill out his paperwork. The producer is a corporate type, pressures Prithviraj because otherwise he will lose his job. The director and coordinator are uncomfortable with this whole conversation. As I read it, everyone involved in the film is aware that delays happen and budget issues happen, and if Prithviraj asked for a 30 day break it means he has a really good reason. Only the producer thinks of Prithviraj as more of a commodity than a person. Just as Suraj’s wife thinks of him, a tool to add drama and excitement to her existence.

There’s also the media, who jump on the idea of Prithviraj somehow “cheating” on his drivers test. And then are easily redirected to jump on the idea of Suraj as a power crazed bureaucrat. And of course the people behind the media, the general public who are fascinated by this story that they didn’t really care about a second ago.

I think that is the real point of the film. That something as simple as a drivers licence can become something people care about DEEPLY just because they want to care about something. That a movie star’s whole life is seen as the possession of other people, not his fans, but his producers, the state officials, the media, and the general public. The effort to protect some small part of his personal life will, inevitably, lead to anger and resentment on the part of everybody. The only hope is if the whole industry stands together, Prithviraj could attack Suresh Krishna and reveal what he did, but then they will have even less privacy. So Prithviraj, and the other industry people, agree to just ride out the storm and wait, any public attack is worth maintaining your private life.