Kalimannu

An unevenly emotional tale with a message that is contemporary; the latest film Kalimannu from director Blessy manages to make its audience smile at the last moment with its socially relevant theme. Even though the making lacks that appealing factor, the engaging conversations on some affecting topics make it enjoyable.

The movie focuses on the life of an item dancer turned actress. A woman who has suffered a lot from her childhood itself is our main protagonist.  After her breakup with a film producer, she becomes close to a taxi driver Shyam who stood by her in those difficult times and they eventually get married. On a particular situation she is forced to do artificial insemination from her husband to get pregnant. The uniqueness of this scenario, where a famous Bollywood actress adopting this kind of pregnancy creates some irritations in social and religious circles. How she overcomes these situations and how this particular pregnancy becomes a talking point in the present social scenario where the women are so insecure is what the movie Kalimannu about.

Well the Non-definite scripting method has definitely influenced the movie’s beauty as we can see the lack of freshness in the first half. Too much of item numbers and easily predictable story line that follows the modern day style of picturing every heroine as an epitome of suffering is followed here. In between these clichés Blessy manages to fit in some conversations about romance and hope in life which keeps the movie alive. In the second half, the movie starts to focus on its real content. The transformation of the main lead to a pregnant woman offers a lot of feel good moments. Blessy captures the maternal period and the delivery sequences without any aesthetic issues and smartly moves in to that social preach which manages to end the film on a better knot.

Blessy has made Kalimannu in that typical emotional platform which we have seen in his previous films. But sadly he isn’t that clear in setting up the background for this idea. The transition of the romantic/caring mother to a social worker who is very much committed to the empowerment of women was a bit abrupt. Also the breezy movie fails to portray its main actress as a big star. Because of this, the later incidents that make the pregnancy a national issue seems quite exaggerated. But the script manages to please its audience in those maternal and romantic sequences. Dialogs are sensible at times, but the amount of drama in dialogs where a bit too much in some areas. While the proposal sequence of Biju Menon was on the pleasing side, the hope speech involving Suhasini went to an over dramatic level. Satheesh Kurup has captured the visuals beautifully. Edits weren’t that smooth. The music of those Malayalam songs written by ONV was really gorgeous and M Jayachandran has used some of the tracks in the background fittingly.

On the performance side, as I have seen other films of Swetha Menon like Paleri Manikyam and Ozhimuri, I won’t rate this as her best. The actress was convincing in the role. The dubbing on some pivotal emotional sequences has taken away the charm from the performance. Even with his limited appearance, Biju Menon manages to make the audience happy. Suhasini is also convincing in her role.

Overall Kalimannu is far from being called as a very good movie. But the purpose is something that should be appreciated and if you are sensible enough to expect something relevant, this movie won’t really disappoint you completely. After seeing the last portions of the film that has these media trials, you may definitely have a bad feeling about the controversy surrounding the film. Either the script was changed or they scripted the controversy too. My rating is a 3/5 and thumbs up. It’s worth watching.