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Janaki V vs State of Kerala (Malayalam)
When news about a movie precedes its release, the element of surprise is the first to take a hit.
The premise of Janaki V vs State of Kerala (JSK) has been laid bare multiple times over the past few weeks, as the film crossed swords with the censor board. Finally, with the court’s support, the censoring was reduced to adding a ‘V’ to the title and beeping a couple of ‘Janakis’ in the film.
By then, there seemed little left to discover about what Anupama Parameswaran and Suresh Gopi, leading the film, would be portraying — one, a rape survivor; the other, a lawyer. Another leaf out of the world of Pink, you’d think, that courtroom drama built around an advocate’s telling remarks on the meaning of consent.
Only, impressions can be terribly off the mark. Director Pravin Narayanan’s JSK is, at best, an attempt to revive the superstar persona of Suresh Gopi, beginning with a grand introduction in the opening credits and peppered with the kind of preachy sermons and loud retorts typical of his action films from the 1990s.
Janaki, the title character around whom the censor controversy emerged, is not the fiery, strong survivor she was made out to be in the reports.
For the most part, Anupama plays the face of a lost woman, barely in her senses, let alone possessing the energy for court battles. She appears in court like she is on the balcony of a house, staring into the distance and mouthing the odd cryptic phrase, not giving much away. Except for a single line to an advocate about how this should not happen to another girl, she lets others around her take charge. Madhav Suresh, making his debut, Divya Pillai, playing his sister, and Askar Ali, as a police officer, become her allies.
Suresh Gopi, as David Abel Donovan for the defense, is quite the stereotype of the hostile lawyer questioning the survivor. He echoes his heyday avatar, apparently at ease in familiar territory. Shruti Ramachandran, Yadhu Krishna, and Baiju make refreshing appearances, but for the most part, the characters seem half-baked, and the writing comes off amateurish in parts, relying heavily on clichés.
It is not quite clear what JSK tries to establish. The film appears to take digs at the system, and at politicians in general, but the message about the case at hand gets lost among it all. Appreciably, except in a court scene where it is to be expected, the film itself appears not to take a moral policing stand on the survivor’s personal life. There is also a certain order to the film, with proper editing and some notable background score, all of which could have been put to better use.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.