Thalsamayam Oru Penkutty

T K Rajeev Kumar’s “Thalsamayam Oru Penkutty” is a film that tries to be different but ends up as a lame senseless movie. The intention of the makers is to expose the dark side of reality shows. But unfortunately the script doesnt have that spark to ignite the audience.

The movie is about a girl Manjula Aiyyappan (Played by Nithya Menen) and how her life changes drastically when she is thrown in to the world of reality shows. A leading news channel, Real TV decides to increase their prime time TRPs by telecasting a new kind of a reality show called “Thalsamayam Oru Penkutty” that captures every movement of a girl. Through the journey she sometimes becomes a social worker, sometimes a representative of women and some more. The channel’s attempt to cash all these events gives the movie the required spices and those same spices spoils the movie.

In the onscreen side no one has delivered a bad performence in my view. Nithya Menen was good in her role as Manju. Her way of talking, noticeably in a scene where she talks to Siddiq in phones speaker phone was quite nice. Shwetha Menon also delivered an impressive performance as the producer of the show. Baburaj did a role which was different from his usual villain/ comedian outlook. Siddiq, Maniyan pilla Raju, Tini Tom and many others did their roles neatly. Two important Roles in the movie played by Unni Mukundan and Suraj Venjaaramood was totally unconvincing. Unni Mukundan wasnt used properly and Suraj was a miscast.

Behind the scenes, T K Rajeev Kumar’s direction showed few shades of new generation film making style here and there but in executing scenes he followed the same old pattern. Script of Sunny Joseph and Manuel George was somewhat convincing in the first half but it failed to impress in the second half. Dialogs were fine especially in the corporate dialogs involving Shwetha, Siddiq and Baburaj. The only real positive I found in this movie is the music by Sharreth. There were many technical flaws. In a scene in the second half actor Siddiq wasn’t dubbed.

The movie’s plot is loosely based on the 1999 Hollywood Flick “Ed TV”. The movie has relevance in this time of reality shows. But this is not enough to make an impact.

I am giving 2.5/5 for “Thalsamayam Oru Penkutty”. Its an attempt to make a socially committed impressive cinema, but unfortunately its still far away from being impressive.