Madhu Warrier’s debut directorial is a breezy fun ride about a group of individuals who are trying to look back and reclaim their happiness in life. The film which was directly released on Disney Hotstar is about the importance of family bonding in this fast-paced life. What makes it an endearing watch are the familiar actors who give a face to these characters. They make it worthwhile.
Simple story
The film starts in Mumbai, capturing the life of Annie who is settled there with her husband and two children. They are planning to go home for vacation. Along with Annie, her brothers also join the festivities, to a house that is filled with beautiful memories. There are unresolved issues between them. An incident prompts them to extend their vacation for a week. How their life turns around in a week is what the film is all about.
In the film’s trailer, Biju Menon says—“If we are allowed to go back in time and correct our blunders and mistakes it would have been great.” Though this sounds like an impractical solution, the film reminds us that some corrections can make life infinitely better.
Characters are colourful
Manju Warrier, Biju Menon, and Saiju Kurup are the film’s backbone. Other actors include Anu Mohan, Deepthy Sathi, Sudheesh, Raghunath Paleri, and Remya Nambeesan. Manju Warrier’s Annie is a woman who shows the gumption to chase her dreams. She is a bit loud. During a scene, Biju Menon tells her that she is damn lucky. She is able to balance her career and family life beautifully. Though it looks lucky from the outside, the balance is achieved through a lot of give and take in the family. The film breaks the conventional norm that a woman needs to sacrifice to keep her family together. In here it's her husband who steps back and lets her chase her dreams.
Most of the man-women relationships have these subversions in the film. The film has tried to lightheartedly explore the conflicted relationships between people. All the couples in the film, be it Raghunath Paleri-Zareena Wahab, Manju Warrier-Saiju Kurup, Biju Menon-Remya Nambeesan, and Anu Mohan-Deepthy Sathi go through such intricacies and complications. They all share a unique chemistry. Amongst them, Manju Warrier-Saiju Kurup chemistry is the best.
Saiju Kurup is a class apart as Sandeep, the calm and sensible stay-at-home dad. Biju Menon is in his elements as Sunny. Sudheesh was the surprise packet, and he was very endearing. His punch dialogue was effective, and he was given a definite character arc.
Behind the scenes
For a debutant, Madhu Warrier has scored well as a director. Pramod Mohan’s scripting was also in keeping with the changing times we live in. He has managed to sketch the details and complexities in man-woman relationships after marriage charmingly. The film has also normalised live-in relationships. Having said that they could have avoided certain melodramatic scenes in the film. If the writer had shown more detail in picking the flashback milieu as he had shown in his character sketches, the suspense would have looked more organic.
The frames (P Sukumar) are as colourful as the title cards. Editing by Lijo Paul is also very good. The nostalgia which flows throughout the film is elevated by Bijibal’s music. Some songs evoked nostalgia while the original ones were nothing worth mentioning.
Lalitham Sundaram is a fun film, devoid of twists or turns. It will be fun to watch!
