Aaru Sundarimarude Katha – ASK

Aaru Sundarimarude Katha aka ASK. The better and more suitable title for this film from director Rajesh K Abraham will be ASUK (Aaru Sundarikal Ulla Kadha). A movie that started of promisingly lost the focus in the midway and ended up as a usual crime thriller where people will be more interested predicting the villain after a point of time. Sarcasm over the attitude of the elderly and some advices to live happily in these modern times, that’s what they have tried to convey through the movie. Even though this is conveyed somewhere in the process, the kind of story they have chosen just goes on and on and ends up as a tiring watch.

The film basically revolves around the Moothedan family. The three generations of the family is shown in the movie. A highly supportive and enthusiastic grandmother, her daughter and former basketball player Rose, her husband Alex who is the head of the news channel owned by Moothedan family and their daughter Anju who is an upcoming tennis talent are the main characters in the movie. How the hidden unevenness in the family life shatters their life with the entry of few more characters in to the plot and how everything falls back in place is basically ASK all about and the makers have chosen a crime thriller format to present the story.

Well, the movie kicks off quite interestingly with Zareena Wahab’s character narrating the plot in those bright windows 8 desktop background and it really sends out a positive wibe. The beginning portions were also quite engaging with characters being introduced in a cheerful manner. But after around an hour of run time the movie falls into that melodramatic phase which was too tough to handle. The tennis backdrop of Anju’s character needed a grand canvas and the lack of it really has an impact in convincing the audience. In a world were almost everyone is familiar with facebook, introducing some non existing feature to it was quite lame ( Narain – Nadia Moithu chat). In between all these chaos’s and dramas, writers have conveyed some thoughts to improve the bonding in relationships these days through those talks between Sree and Rose and also the Day care concept of the housewife played by Shamna.

On screen, Nadia and Zareena wahab played their part smartly, but sadly the dubbing spoiled the impact at many occasions. Prathap Pothen was perfect for the womanizer character. Narain is convincing as the helpless software engineer. Umang Jain was really impressive as Anju Moothedan. Shamna Kasim played the role of the typical malayalee house wife convincingly. Lakshmi Rai was also good as ASP Fausia. Lena did well in her antagonist portrayal.

In the making, Rajesh K Abraham is a promising talent. He couldn’t handle the dramatic portions perfectly. Screenplay as I said was tiring towards the second half and the suspense wasn’t enough to make us clap even though it was slightly unpredictable. Cinematography is ok and the edits are also fine. The music and background score are impressive; but the placements of songs were awkward. The VFX portion is good enough to entertain the eyes except for the Singapore hotel.

Overall, Aaru Sundarimarude Katha ASK is an average film that has its moments here and there. I am giving the movie a generous 2.5/5. It’s a film where the makers forgot to wrap up at the correct time. Watch it if you are hardcore lover of preachy family dramas.