Paalum Pazhavum: Poorly made film with good intent and performances

It is almost sad that just by a lame opening scene, in the matter of a few minutes, you can gauge how poorly made the movie you have just bought a ticket for is going to be. Two or more hours of it would follow and you’d sit there, hoping against hope that somehow it will all get better. Paalum Pazhavum, at the heart of it, has an adorable message, but you need to go through layers of bad filmmaking to unearth and appreciate it. The film does not just say that age should least matter in a relationship between grownups, but tries to expose double standards and the hypocrisy of “good sons” who turn out to be hardcore misogynists. While that is nice, it does not make the film more tolerable. At best, the last half may just be a tad more tolerable than the first really trying half. 

VK Prakash, a director who has made several commendable movies in the past, falters with Paalum Pazhavum, written by Ashish Rajani and Unnikrishnan. Appreciably though, Prakash has yet another time chosen to cast a senior woman actor, who has faded from the scene, as the female lead. Meera Jasmine, who was once a much-adored actor with an enviable list of powerful characters, plays the 33-year-old Sumi, who had to sacrifice her dreams of a job and marriage, to take care of her mother. While her story unrolls in Kottayam, 23-year-old Sunil (Aswin Jose) has grown from a slacker schoolchild to a slacker adult in Kochi, listening to a bunch of other slackers to find success in life. 

Both stories unfold in a cacophony of voices, meant to be funny but are in the least so, and a series of poorly edited shots. At the outset, two grownup siblings – Sumi and her brother Sumesh (Mithun Ramesh) – for some unearthly reason insist on shouting over each other as their overstressed mother (Shanthi Krishna) struggles in the kitchen. The scene ends with the mother’s fall and you might have sympathised with her if you too had not almost fallen from your seat in all that mayhem. The brief silence at the end of this endless shot is to be treasured, for you will have few such moments ahead.

Parallelly, Sunil the schoolboy is getting tired of his bossy brother, who is the ‘good son’ to his parents, doing well at school and snitching on Sunil. In all this imagery, fun is intended, starting from the know-it-all lines of the young boy to the betrayals of the big brother. Only, you miss it amid the poor scripting. 

By the time Sumi and Sunil begin a relationship, a child could have told them this absolutely made no sense, not because of their age difference, but because they did not seem to think at all, about anything, just act like keyed dolls.

Despite the bad writing, the actors try to do their best. Aswin, and even the child playing his younger version, sincerely try to make the character of an immature youth work. Aswin’s expressions are genuine, his voice modulations well-used. Jasmine too, after the noisy first scene, matures into her character, subtle with her reactions and discrete with the emotion. The character itself is not so settled, acting on her whims like an adolescent, unnaturally naive and ignorant about the ways of the world (she doesn't know what Facebook is). All of this might be attributed to her years spent within the house, away from the outside world, when she had to cater to the needs of a bedridden mother. But that will just be a lame excuse for lazy writing. 

Shanthi Krishna as the mother plays her horrible character really well. Oh, she is horrible, so is Sumi’s whole family, complete with the sister-in-law who has nothing to do with her time other than to urge the brother to tell off Sumi. Everyone appears to forget that Sumi has been home for years because she was forced to take care of the mother, and it wasn't her choice to not work or get married. It is infuriating to hear the mother keep calling her ‘muthuki’ - an insulting term for old women. The movie, in that way, tackles ageism in its own lousy way, showing the number of ways a woman is humiliated just for her age, if she has not by that age followed the dictates of a patriarchal society – viz., a long (and preferably sufferable) marriage, dragging a few kids, holding many degrees but not working. 

If only the writing could more effectively convey these telling messages without making the viewer go through long and testing shots, Paalum Pazhavum would have been a more memorable experience. 

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 producers or any other members of its cast and crew.