Clint

No offense to the extremely talented Edmund Thomas Clint who astonished everyone with his talent, but the latest Harikumar biopic based on the life of Clint is a tedious test of patience that fails to look in to the aspects which the world wanted to know about. With cliches and over the top melodrama spoiling cinematic beauty of it, the best thing one can say about Clint is that it is informative.

The film focuses on the last year of Clint’s life. The energetic, questioning and intelligent kid was appreciated by everyone around him and his parents were super supportive. A disease that affects the kidney causes severe health issues to Clint and the movie shows us this life of Clint.

One will go and watch a movie like Clint to know more about the character. But Harikumar’s take on Clint offers very little in terms of character exploration. Whatever we may know through articles is getting repeated through the words of the several characters that appear on screen. And every bit of it is extremely melodramatic. There is a “comedy” scene featuring Salim Kumar. A biopic is something that needs careful and honest depiction of events and this kind of rubbish comedy on top of an outdated treatment only enhances the lack of quality. The last half an hour of the film has the child prodigy saying too much of heavy stuff and honestly it doesn’t look convincing.

On screen, Master Alok occasionally has the flow to be that smart and intelligent artist. But Harikumar has given him too many heavy unreal lines to reduce the charm. Unni Mukundan as always is struggling with his dialogue delivery. Here he was also struggling with emotions. The best performer among the lot was Rima Kallingal. Vinay Forrt looked too caricaturish. Joy Mathew was fine as the doctor.

The lack of grace Harikumar has shown in this film reminded me of the recent directorial outing of Adoor Gopalakrishnan. It’s really sad to see veteran directors failing to treat films realistically. The whole movie has this unreal extreme drama tone. And the screenplay is only trying to document facts rather than humanising the characters and their situations. Edits are too sharp. Madhu Ambat’s frames aren’t making any striking statements. Music and background score weren’t that absorbing.

Clint as a talent deserves a better film that explores his talent rather than his backdrop. There is scope for a better movie on Clint with better script and smarter interpretations.

Rating: 2/5