Thamaasha is a beautiful comedy that endearingly portrays the concept of identifying the real beauty in people. The movie directed by Ashraf Hamza is frequently hilarious and towards the end, it becomes a totally affecting tale. Through so many rooted and real characters, Thamaasha navigates through the flaws and insecurities of a normal human being, making it an extremely relatable experience.
Sreenivasan is a college professor who teaches Malayalam. He is bald-headed and that has affected his self-confidence. The proposals of marriage always ended up in rejection and he sort of lost his hope in getting a companion. The movie Thamaasha shows us the events that occur in Sreenivasan’s life when he was least expecting a relationship to work out for him.
The joy of watching Thamaasha is in the fact that it has all the relatable factors. Our hero is struggling with an inferiority complex and the major bulk of this movie is dedicated to showing that in the most real and humorous way. The writing is such that we are not laughing at the character, we are laughing at his inability to embrace the so-called flaws. The first half is pretty much a build up to show us how alone our hero is. The second half is actually the core of the movie, where the conventional matchmaking concept gets broken up in the most endearing way. The character of Chinnu just stays with you with that bright attitude and the sensitiveness of that character gets portrayed through minimal dialogues and that strengthens the equality in that relationship.
Vinay Forrt is terrific as Sreenivasan. It was a character that could have easily gone the gimmicky way, but Vinay makes him very subtle and the insecurities are largely conveyed through body language and not through emotional outbursts. The surprising new find of Thamaasha is Chinnu Chandni who plays the role of Chinnu so elegantly. There isn’t a pinch of melodrama in her portrayal and the emotional texture she brings in one sequence where the character talks to people that publically do body shaming was so real. Divya Prabha was impressive as Babitha teacher. Grace Antony, Arun Kurien, etc were fine in their respective roles. And a special mention should be given to Navas Vallikkunnu for his performance. He wasn’t a mere comedy sidekick. That character had his own arc and experience and Navas was really good in capturing all of that.
The movie is based on the Kannada movie Ondu Motteya Kathe directed by Raj B Shetty. I have deliberately not seen that film to avoid a comparison review as the promos sort of promised a more original approach. Ashraf Hamza adapts the tough way of making things realistic and even though people may occasionally speak against that particular approach, I feel making a comedy using that style of filmmaking is something that needs at most precision and the director and the crew were spot on in achieving that. The script, as I said, is investing in the build up in the first half and then it shifts to the real issue. There is amazing ease in the way the movie shifts from events to events making it look like a smooth transition rather than an episode-like journey. Sameer Thahir’s cinematography was able to bring optimism in almost all frames. The songs are so soothing and my personal favorite was the biennale song.
Thamaasha may fall in the category of a feel-good film. But the humor is so practical and the issue is so real that this two-hour long movie will surely be there in your go-to movie list in the future. There is a beautiful scene featuring an old man arriving at his home town in a car. The happiness that particular scene provides somewhat encapsulates the happiness this movie is trying to provide you.
Rating: 4/5
The humor is so practical and the issue is so real that this two-hour long movie will surely be there in your go-to movie list in the future.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
