'Pookkaalam' Malayalam movie review: A feel-good family entertainer with a novel theme – The Hindu

Happiness is Ganesh Raj’s calling card; one would battle to search out an sad second in his work. Even the largest of crises would appear reasonably inconsequential when handled light-heartedly. On this planet that he envisions, heat colors come out of each different body. Mild, feel-good music goes on and on within the background. Tears are principally out of happiness, reasonably than sorrow. For that matter, his debut film itself was titled Aanandam(happiness).

Whereas Aanandam was set round a gaggle of children on a university journey, in his sophomore work Pookkaalam, it’s the older era — a pair who’re almost 100 years previous and have been married for eighty years — who takes centre stage. On the day of their granddaughter Elsy’s (Annu Antony) betrothal, Ittoop (Vijayaraghavan) by chance discovers an previous letter written fifty years in the past. The letter threatens to solid a cloud on the completely happy event, bringing as much as the floor the household’s buried secrets and techniques

The novel theme is what drives a lot of the film, however Ganesh, who has additionally scripted it, ensures that it doesn’t tread on terrains which can be too scorching to deal with, simply stopping quick each time the film threatens to slide out of the feel-good zone. Nicely, it’s not improper to play to your strengths. It’s the type of materials that might have ended up as a heart-wrenching story if dealt with by another person.

A lot of Pookkaalam focuses on the nice and cozy relationship between Ittoop and his spouse Kochuthresia (KPAC Leela), and the massive prolonged household round them, at current. But, it takes periodic shifts to the previous, of their early days of struggles and private losses, which provides us an concept of the affect that the disaster would have on the close-knit household. The disaster additionally shines a lightweight on the disagreeable episodes that folks wilfully overlook to maintain the ship crusing easily. Individuals who appear sober of their previous age might need executed horrible issues previously. At one level, Kochuthresia ominously tells Ittoop, “Now we have been residing on this home for eighty years. If we dig deep round right here, we would discover uncomfortable issues.”

Ganesh makes an attempt to stability each emotional second rapidly with a light-hearted scene, some working and a few don’t. As an illustration, a working joke involving a junior advocate (Basil Joseph) and his previous buddy (Vineeth Sreenivasan), who’s now a choose, appears a bit compelled. Regardless of all of the youthful solid of actors round them, Vijayaraghavan and KPAC Leela hog all of the limelight with their shifting performances because the couple who’re going through a disaster late of their lives. Within the moments that he acts stern, Vijayaraghavan brings again reminiscences of his father N.N.Pillai’s iconic character ‘Anjooran’ in Godfather.

Pookkaalam is a feel-good household entertainer with a novel theme that ends reasonably tamely and predictably.

Pookkaalam is presently working in theatres

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