Anuraga Karikkin Vellam

The ultimate feel the movie Anuraga Karikkin Vellam offers to the audience is somewhat similar to the happiness we had after seeing something like Salt n Pepper. Yes, some similarities are there in the content but you can’t really blame it as any sort of copying. With numerous characters interconnected over a small space, this feel good entertainer throws light on another side of broken love and offers a pleasing two hours inside the cinema hall.

I cant really tell you a clear cut plot of the movie as it would force me to tell you the entire story. So lets put it this way. It is basically about this middle class family. Raghu is this police officer and he has a wife and two kids. The elder boy is Abhilash who hasn’t really got an aim on what to do as a career. And much like most middle class families, there is this cold war sort of lack of communication in this family as well. Anuraga Karikkin Vellam focuses on a series of events that happens to the family which eventually fixes a lot of issues.

The best thing about Anuraga Karikkin Vellam is the same thing we all talked about Action Hero Biju and Maheshinte Prathikaram; The realness in the treatment.  Being a part of the middle class family I could easily relate to everything that happens on screen and director Khalid Rahman captures the scenes as if all of them were just behaving. From minimal reactions to small metaphors, this movie has that charm to put a smile on your face. The numerous characters inside the plot aren’t there just to make the poster look grand, they all have a really good slot in the story and even within these 129 minutes of runtime, we will remember almost all of them as characters.

Biju Menon in his effortless style easily performs the role of that police officer with responsibilities. The actor very smoothly portrays the transformation of the character Raghu. His comedy timing is impeccable and he offers those moments of laughter with grace. Asha Sharath as the obedient concerned wife / mother was also quite nice. Asif Ali portrays the role Abhilash convincingly. Rajisha Vijayan was the one who absolutely surprised me. I thought the audience would howl at her because of the sort of annoyance her character Elizabeth aka Eli possesses. But to be honest she got the character perfectly and delivers a memorable performance. Soubin Shahir was once again terrific with his comedy. Sudheer Karamana, Sreenath Bhasi and a few more Kochi Machans are there in the cast who all delivered good performances.

Khalid Rahman is here to stay in my opinion as he delivered a joyful cinema from a simple theme. He succeeds in making his actors behave naturally and there are no visual gimmicks and staggering drama in the narration. In terms of content, what the movie is trying to achieve is to show us the brighter side of a broken relationship as everything in life gives us a valuable lesson to move forward. My slight disagreement was on the final act regarding that nerd guy. There was this selfless concern inside him which needed to be appreciated in a better way. Cinematography was good. The edits also had the pace to keep us occupied. Loved the songs and fitting background scores from Prashanth Pillai. The sound design was also quite natural.

On the whole Khalid Rahman’s Anuraga Karikkin Vellam written by Naveen Bhaskar is an enlightening and absorbing feel good rom com that will bring a smile to your face. Out of the four releases we had this week, this one would be the one I would recommend.

Rating : 3.5/5