‘Kumari’ movie review: Immersive fantasy-horror drama pulled down by a shallow script

A way of inevitability, of the unleashing of evil forces all through time, pervades Kumari proper from its starting. That, in fact, needs to be anticipated in a movie belonging to this style, combining components of fantasy and horror. The prologue — with an prolonged narration of a grandma’s story — of the curses which have befallen the rich Kanhirangat household, additionally provides to this sense. Kumari (Aishwarya Lekshmi) is about to reach at this family, after getting married to Dhruvan (Shine Tom Chacko), the youthful son of the household head.

Nirmal Sahadev is considerably profitable in immersing the viewer on this tharavadu, and the village round it, which is steeped in superstition. It appears nearly lower off from the remainder of the world, with even Kumari not stepping out of it, after getting into it. The one character who visits her from exterior additionally doesn’t return. The sluggish build-up in direction of doomsday works up to some extent, however the script doesn’t have something in it to reside as much as the anticipation that has been fastidiously created.

That is evident in how issues begin going south instantly after the midway level. Three characters, who had stood out in numerous methods, get killed off in fast succession. Completely different evil forces are invoked left and proper, with somebody suggesting Kumari launch a 3rd one to avoid wasting the family. Only a couple extra and we might have had a significant convention of darkish forces, with the large tharavadu having sufficient room to accommodate all of them. The writing is listless within the latter half, squandering all of the exhausting work in manufacturing design, which provides to the temper that the director is aiming at.

One attention-grabbing sidetrack is the portrayal of the household’s oppression of the tenant farmers within the village, making the upper-caste elites seem extra evil than the darkish forces residing deep within the jungle. Nonetheless, this angle will not be pursued a lot. Extra time is invested within the household’s black magic practices, together with human sacrifice, that has eerie parallels to some latest information reviews. The movie doesn’t have a rational counter to those practices; fairly, Kumari counters it with different superstitions which might be a lot much less dangerous. In that respect, it’s fairly old-school and completely different from latest horror makes an attempt in Malayalam cinema, lots of which had left the window open for rational interpretations too. The horror components don’t work a lot both

Aishwarya Lekshmi ably anchors the movie with help from a set of actors together with Surabhi Lakshmy, who is nearly unrecognisable. Nonetheless, Shine Tom Chacko — an in any other case sensible actor — seems a shadow of his normal self, with an over-dramatic efficiency, and dialogue supply harking back to a few of his latest notorious interviews.

Director Nirmal Sahadev, who debuted with Ranam, an motion drama set in Detroit, has improved his sport marginally, however a shallow script pulls Kumari down.