Well, this was a sunny pleasant film. Not great, but not terrible. Very Malayalam. Oh, and pretty also, can’t beat those Kerala village settings!

This is what Malayalam cinema would consider a “filler” film. And it is a filler film really, it has the standard points of a Malayalam film without doing anything too remarkable. Gorgeous natural light village in nature visuals, large cast giving the feeling of a full world, plot that has insanely low stakes and yet also subtly relates to larger questions of power and society, and a heroine who speaks her mind and gets what she wants. Oh, and a plot structure that slooooooooooooowly gets going before reaching a happy ending. If this was the first Malayalam film I saw, I would have been blown away with the different narrative, gorgeous visuals, moral message, and so on and so forth. But it’s not my first Malayalam, so instead I just found it good enough. But hey, if you want a perfectly fine sunny Malayalam film to watch, this one is as good as any other!

Kunchacko Boban stars, along with Krishna Shankar. And super hardworking Aparna Balamurali somehow managed to squeeze this in between Sarvam Thaala Mayam and Mr. and Ms Rowdy (which can’t possibly be as good as the title promises, right?) and Jeem Boom Baa. Salim Kumar is there as the older wise cracking character, and the rest of the film is filled in with a wide variety of solid character actors, including Chandini Sreedharan as the second heroine managing to give a full-fledged personality to her character primarily through silent reactions.

The songs are good, the camera work and dialogue are excellent (as usual), and the visuals are sun-dappled and pretty. The story is interesting. It’s very weak, slightly predictable, and light. But it was not intended to be anything more. This isn’t a film that fails to have the depth it wants, this is a film that succeeds in telling the tiny little story it wanted to tell. Not one of those “perfect poetic” kind of little stories, but just a decent good enough story presented in a decent good enough way, without trying to be any more than it is.

This whole movie isn’t trying to be more than it is. No one is pulling any muscles in the acting department, or fancy stuntwork, and camera movements, or any of that. It wouldn’t fit to do it that way, it’s better for the film as a whole that everyone just sits back and relaxes into a nice moderate pace. Which, weirdly, adds to my particular enjoyment as a viewer. I don’t have to stress about the characters, or the artists behind them.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Really, this is BARELY a plot. Which is kind of the point, how these little small stories still matter in their tiny way. Kunchacko Boban is police officer in a village. He has a wife Chandini Sreedharan and a little sister Aparna. And a nice boss Salim Kumar. And then there is Krishna Shankar, a young man recently returned from Dubai looking for a new overseas job. He sees Aparna on a bus and likes her, they start up a thing-thing. And then Kunchacko’s first big problem in life happens when his tire keeps being punctured. He realizes someone is doing it maliciously and starts laying traps and hunting for the “spike” man. He comes close, chases him, and picks up his fallen wallet but it has no ID in it beyond an old childhood photo. And then Krishna and Aparna plan how to set up an “arranged” engagement so that her family will agree, they arrive for the meeting, and Krishna realizes that Kunchacko is his enemy. Kunchacko took Krishna’s bike to chase an escaped prisoner and damaged Krishna’s papers, stopping his attempt to get an overseas job. For vengeance, Krishna started puncturing Kunchacko’s tires. He thinks he is safe, just won’t do it again. But Kunchacko sees Krishna’s childhood photo in his home and confronts him. He agrees to forgive and forget if Krishna humiliates himself over and over. Aparna breaks up with Krishna over his strange behavior, Krishna tells her the truth, she is furious with her brother, Kunchacko breaks the engagement. Until finally Kunchacko finds the same lost prisoner he has been chasing all along at a big event, gives chase, gets into a fight, and Krishna defends him, and they make up. Happy Wedding Ending!!!

If this were a Hindi film, it would be far FAR bigger and more tragic. Cop destroys life thoughtlessly, man seeks revenge, learns Cop is brother of the woman he loves, Cop now enjoys exerting power to destroy life even further, and finally Cop and man unite against a Greater Evil. The Hindi version would be a Cop, like, killing his whole family in an accidental shooting he doesn’t even remember, the man torturing him with threats and violence, the love story some passionate at first sight thing, the exerting of power some horrible violent event, and then finally the Greater Evil some super evil enemy of the state thing.

But it’s Malayalam. So Kunchacko took a motorbike and got some papers wet, which is still a thoughtless abuse of power, but a very tiny one. And a romance which starts because he offers to hold her lunchbag on the bus and then asks her to wash his shirt when her lunch spills out is just as romantic as one that starts in a beautiful rain storm with dancing children and all the rest of it. Investigating a tire puncture campaign, and carrying out a tire puncture campaign, both sides of it involve as much intelligence and skill and thrills as any other kind of cop versus criminal. And maybe it’s not very romantic to have a local loudmouth who keeps escaping arrest be the Big Bad, but that’s part of police work, it’s not always the enemy of the state, sometimes it’s just a local malcontent that you have to keep chasing.

Overall, this is society in a microcosm. The people in power are trying to do the right thing, but are vulnerable to hubris and blindness. The people who feel wronged are vulnerable to taking it too far. And love blossoms in unexpected places, and can cause surprising alliances and peace.

There will be other movies that deal with these same themes better, on bigger canvases or just in a clearer way. But this one is pleasant enough.