From Sunny to Sleevachan, Asif Ali has completed quite a journey through Malayalam cinema. It has been 10 years and all of 65 films. He has travelled between being out-of-sorts and spot-on, struggling to find his niche. He has played hero, second fiddle, villain, creep, junkie, and amazing character roles. Here’s a short profile of the actor, who has been growing, and outgrowing himself.
Asif Ali’s Sleevachan, in Kettiyolaanu Ente Malakha, is a farmer who begins his day tapping rubber. With four married elder sisters, Sleevachan lives a contented life with his widowed mother for company in a nondescript village in Central Kerala. Despite being pressured into getting married, he shows little interest until one evening he finds his mother unconscious in the kitchen. At the to-be-bride's home, he is keener to meet her ailing mother, which in turn impresses the young woman and the family to agree for the marriage.
For someone who has never fallen in love and has looked down upon love affairs before marriage, this is a reality check, even as his bride is looking forward to it with stars in her eyes. When the local priest casually dismisses his fears about physical intimacy, the ignorant, anxious and largely terrified Sleevachan takes the casual advice of a depraved friend and decides to showcase his prowess by forcing himself on his wife.
The film not only addresses marital rape but also has a mainstream popular hero playing the part of the man who perpetrates the crime. Though narrated from the man’s point of view, the film never glorifies or justifies the crime, and makes him repent and realise his folly.
Asif’s previous outing was as the toxic and violent boyfriend in Uyare. Uyare was about Pallavi, who aspires to be part of the aviation industry but is attacked by her boyfriend. Nothing underlines Asif Ali’s growth as an actor better than these two films. Noteworthy here are his judicious and brave choice of films—both are roles which define (and distort) the conventional parameters of masculinity in cinema—and the stark difference in his execution of these characters—they come with their own problematic subtext that’s rarely addressed in Malayalam cinema. Govind is possessive, controlling, emotional and obsessively passionate, and like Pallavi, we are in a dilemma about what to make of him till he throws acid on her. Meanwhile, Sleevachan for all his loving son, brother and dedicated farmer roles eventually ends up raping his wife and is called out. Two roles a mainstream actor would have balked at.
If we look at Asif Ali’s career graph, this pursuit for the unconventional has always been there. But, perhaps, it’s only now that all the dots have been connected. A sparkling debut that quickly slowed down, Asif, a graduate in Business Management, model and video jockey, got his first entry into films through an audition.
“Since I came from a non-filmy background, opting for modelling and being a VJ was just a means to reach cinema. Cinema was always my passion and for some reason I knew I would reach there,” recalled Ali in an interview. In 2009, in the Shyamaprasad directed Ritu, he played an IT professional who manipulates friendship to win over his love. His second film was more momentous—an extended cameo as Shanavas, in Sathyan Anthikad’s Kadha Thudarunnu, who marries a Hindu woman and dies in a bike accident, leaving her and their child in the lurch. Right from the start of his career, he has embraced the grey—be it Ritu or Apoorva Ragam. “He has a very innocent face. No one expects him to be dark. That aspect helped in the film," director Sibi Malayil has said in an interview.
From then till now, he has completed 65 films and it must be noted that never in his 10-year-long career, has he had a lean patch when it comes to the quantity of films. From hero, supportive roles, cameos to antagonist, Asif has consistently been part of an equal number of good and bad films. Though, of course, it took a long time for him to establish himself as a viable actor. And he has often admitted to “getting roles bypassed by Prithviraj.”
There were those occasional surprises like the annoying Manu in Aashiq Abu’s Salt N Pepper, a character which can be touted as the one that gave him his first break. Even to this day, Manu’s awkward conversation with a woman he attempts to flirt with during a train journey is picked up by mimicry artists impersonating him. The antagonist in Ordinary, the son who is caught between his ageing parents' divorce ordeal in Ozhimuri, the junkie in Kili Poyi, the grouchy unpleasant boyfriend in Anuraga Karikkin Vellam would be the few roles that showed us that he had the potential to explore his characters deeper.
Stepping out of the ‘comfort’ zone
In an industry where superstars and younger rising stars co-exist with much fanfare, Asif initially struggled to find his niche. When he entered, Prithviraj, Indrajith, Kunchako Boban and Jayasurya had already found their audience.
“I was given a tiny bench and asked to sit alone. And I was their alternative for a long time,” admitted the actor in a television interview. And within a few years after Asif made his debut, another set of promising actors had emerged—Fahadh Faasil, Dulquer Salmaan and Nivin Pauly, bringing with them a new wave in Malayalam cinema. Asif seemed to be caught somewhere in the middle and it wasn’t a great space to be in. That’s when he slowly took the route of reinvention.
Though the attempt was first noticed in 2016, when he opted to play a moronic, selfish hero in debutante Khalid Rahman’s rom-com Anuraga Karikkin Vellam, it was fruitfully put to action the next year. It helped that the promising new wave had already hit the shores of Malayalam cinema. Adventures of Omanakuttan, directed by debutant Rohit VS was Asif's way of stepping out of his comfort zone. This experimental, slightly stretched narrative had him play Omanakuttan, a simpleton who has little self-esteem, is shy around women, suffers from memory loss, leading to a train of odd events. The actor perfected the body language and internalised the complexities of the character, turning it into one of his most underrated works.
“Asif is a courageous actor. He has always taken decisions with his heart rather than take the conventional route. He’s gone through the drill and rectified his weakness over a period as an actor and is constantly evolving with every other film. As a person he has a high level of emotional quotient, which helps a lot in diving deeper into characters,” says Vinay Govind who directed him in Kili Poyi and Kohinoor.
The actor also started a production and distribution house called Adams World of Imagination. In the same year, he did Thrissivaperoor Kliptham and Kaattu—the former, a middling comedy but he bravely pulled off this sexually deprived simpleton called Girija Vallabhan while in Arun Kumar Aravind’s Kaattu, set in the '70s, he handled one of the most challenging roles of his career, playing Nukukannu. He appears to be a halfwit with his curly hair, awkward stride and perpetual scowl, but turns out to be a sensitive but somewhat impulsive young man who shares an endearing bond with Chellappan (Murali Gopy). It’s a character that could easily drift into mimicry but Asif handles Nuku with flair. The gawky lover, the angry and remorseful friend all sit easily on him.
Continuing experimentation
The next year, he continued with his experimental phase. Some won, some faltered. Like his failed attempt to slip into the cool angry young man garb in Mridul Nair’s BTech or his inability to add anything to the lazily made romance, Mandaram. Iblis, a fantastical satire on death, had a promising plot line that failed to translate on screen, making it a dreary watch. He tasted box-office success with Sunday Holiday and Vijay Superum Pournamiyum, both mildly entertaining romcoms, helmed by director Jis Joy.
While Virus was more about being part of a coveted and important project, Asif's real hour of redemption came in Uyare. Directed by Manu Ashokan, and written by Bobby-Sanjay, Asif's Govind was in theory the personification of toxic masculinity, a depiction rarely discussed or portrayed in Malayalam cinema, that too played by a mainstream hero. Asif takes up the challenge and you despise him with every nerve in your body.
“I trusted Bobby-Sanjay implicitly and have know them from the time I worked with them in Traffic,” said Asif in an interview. “Asif is a great actor. He is very open to suggestions and he took the inputs I gave for Govind and took only a day or half to slip into the character. It was a character that could easily drift into melodrama. I think we have only seen glimpses of the fine actor in him,” commented Uyare director Manu Asokan.
Though a debatable narrative and end, Kakshi Amminipillaiwhere he plays the lawyer who fights to grant a divorce to a man who doesn’t want to stay with his overweight wife is still an interesting pick. And then, of course, his latest release, Kettiyolanu Ente Malakha. While debates gather steam around the execution of the theme and how it rallies around the man, everyone would concede that the actor playing the leading man has finally found his niche in Malayalam cinema. You can no longer ignore him or his films.
Neelima has worked in the newspaper industry for more than a decade. She now writes exclusively about Malayalam cinema, contributing to Fullpicture.in and The News Minute. She is known for her detailed and insightful features on misogyny and the lack of representation of women in Malayalam cinema.