Shutter

How often we get to see a film that scores for its uniqueness. Shutter from Joy Mathew is an absolutely brilliant piece of cinema that will make you realize that to make a commercially viable class movie; you just need expensive content and moderate budget. It is a movie that travels beyond the mere categorization as a thriller and makes you think by having a sarcastic take on relationships.

The movie is basically about the character Rasheed who is an orthodox Muslim NRI. His orthodox mindset in a sense blocks the freedom of his daughter and he decides to fix her engagement. On one drunkard evening with his friends circle Rasheed decides to hire a prostitute and his friend Suran helps him in getting the one he asked for. The problems that Rasheed and Suran faces after this and how it changes their attitude towards life is what Shutter all about.

Set in the backdrop of Calicut, Shutter never really loses its engaging factor. Rendered naturally with colloquial language and possible emotions and mindsets, this film manages to stay close to the normal audience. The biggest plus of this smart piece of film making is its thrilling factor. A wrong decision can at times take you to whole lot of troubles. Joy Mathew has added a number of emotional and occasional features in this movie and none of them had been left as a loose end. The way they presented the concept of true friendship was absolutely beautiful. The parallel story involving the film director Manoharan is not at all a burden to the movie and the interconnection between these characters throughout the film makes it more exciting.

On screen Lal has performed very well as the orthodox human being. The agony was visible in his face. Vinay Fort gets a full length role as the lower class auto driver who lacks the quality to think and decide. His transition from the cool dude Calicut auto driver to a common man in agony was really good. Sreenivasan gets a character that demands a guy like him. It is not a challenging one, but still he has done it nicely and Manoharan will be remembered for sure. Sajitha Madathil was a bit uncomfortable at the beginning, but as the movie progressed her character synced in beautifully and the second half of the film offers her much more space to perform. Prem Kumar, Vijayan Karanthur, Appunni Sasi, Augustine and many Calicut based actors gets some memorable characters in this Joy Mathew film.

After watching the movie I really felt that Joy Mathew should have got an award for directing this unique film in such an engaging manner. He has managed to convey many shades of our nature in a thrilling platform. Script is also nicely crafted with equally interesting parallel narratives that connects smoothly by the midway. Practically written dialogs add life to the content. Cinematography is good and the shaky frame suits the narrative. The one shot were train passes by Suran made the audience applaud and it really conveyed the agony in his mind. Edits are fine.

On the whole, Shutter is a must watch for all the film enthusiasts. Not often you get to see such brilliant movies. It’s a movie that fades the line between the so called parallel cinema and commercial cinema. I am giving 4/5 for this small film with non typical content. If you have felt sorry for watching some commercial craps, watch this one and you will feel that you have been forgiven.