Matinee

Matinee from Aneesh Upasana is one movie that you will have to adjust your taste to digest the content. Not because that the movie is complicated or weird. It’s a movie that tries to narrate a known dark side of cinema in a way that cannot be called as refreshing or engaging. Loosely based on films like Heroine and Dirty Picture in terms of content, “Matinee” just doesn’t have that x-factor to disturb our minds.

Well the movie revolves around two protagonists Najeeb and Savithri. Najeeb is desparate to make it to the film industry and Savithri is desparate too get out of the slavery of her father. Destiny makes both of them hero and heroines of a movie named “Puthu Vasantham”. But the release of the movie totally shackles the life of these two and the nature of the movie literally blows away all their hopes of having a great carrier. How Savithri fights against the faith and how Najeeb struggles to find faith in life is basically the plot of this movie based movie.

Well the movie itself hasn’t done justice to its message at some points. There is a portion were the production controller tells the leads that in the industry it takes a lot of time to get a break and the entry of these two are pictured as quite an easy one without much hardships. And one other problem is that the narrative doesn’t go to a level that has an unpredictable shade which I felt as necessary because we are used to a pattern in cinema related stories.

Mythili is good in most of the scenes. The only problem is that she is limited an attitude that prevails on her face throughout the film. Maqbool Salman surely has the potential and his performance in this movie was convincing. The rest of the cast including Lena, Thalaivasal Vijay, Sasi Kallinga etc doesn’t have much screen space and they have done their part with the needed perfection.

In the making, Aneesh Upasana impressed me by showing a few rough scenes involving mythili nut at the same type he disturbed me by showing some typical melodrama. He has that photography sense in visualizing the scenes. Script is dragging in the first half and it is comparatively better in the second half. Camera work of Pappinu is neat enough and the edits could have been better. Ratheesh Vega’s music is good but not that catchy. The Kavya Madhavan sound track suits the situation. Gopi Sundar’s BGMs were not upto the mark. “Ayalathe Veettile..” from Anand Raj Anand is the only positive of the movie when looked in a commercial sense.

On the whole new comer Aneesh Upasana’s “Matinee” is a flawed attempt to narrate the dark silver screen life. I am giving 2/5 for this venture. If you are willing to compromise, you will find it as a watchable one.