Vyasanasametham Bandhumithradhikal

There is a neighbour who refuses to allow cremation near their boundary, a local politician trying to hijack the rituals for vote-bank optics, clueless funeral attendees mistaking Shakthi for a migrant worker, and relatives more interested in gossip and booze than mourning. The tone remains light, with plenty of Trivandrum slang peppered throughout the conversations. Some gags, like the loud band troupe next door practising Tamil kuthu songs during the wake, creating amusing tonal dissonance, work well. But despite its comic potential, the film never quite finds its rhythm. The many threads do not always come together meaningfully, and what starts as an engaging satire slowly turns into a patchy collection of events. By the time the film tries to inject emotion and give Anjali and Murali their big moment of empowerment, it feels like a completely different film. The tonal shift is clunky, and the payoff underwhelming.

Produced by Vipin Das, who wrote Vaazha and directed Guruvayoor Ambalanadayil, the texture of this movie is in a similar zone. The initial portions of this movie are actually the dull ones. The screenplay here is a smart one. There are a lot of minute elements that are passed to us through either dialogues or visuals that become an integral element to the final confusion as the story progresses. But in between, they are stretching or overdoing certain things, which makes it a drag. Even though fun is the primary layer and intention of the movie, it is also a political film, and hence, you can’t really approach it like a no-brainer CID Moosa. The problem was that while some of the jokes are placed brilliantly, there are these overly improvised ones that go to the Guruvayoor Ambalanadayil zone of things.

The acting is competent to a considerable extent. Azees Nedumangad is solid as Murali, especially towards the end. Anaswara Rajan plays Anjali adequately, though her performance feels indistinguishable from her past roles. Mallika Sukumaran is spot-on in her short but memorable turn. Joemon Jyothir shines as the comic punching bag, and Noby Marcose is consistently reliable as the underappreciated voice of reason. Viji Thampi and Neeraja Rajendran, as Akhil’s absurdly superstitious and stubborn parents, offer some genuinely funny moments. Baiju Santhosh’s role as Venu is theatrical but flat, a sketch too one-note to feel menacing or meaningful. Siju Sunny, sadly, feels tiringly repetitive.