The premise of the movie Enkilum Chandrike has the charm of the rural village comedy. But writers Arjun Narayanan and Adithyan Chandrashekhar know how to narrate the story humorously without lingering on any irrelevant portions. With every sequence connecting to the core plot and the humor never becoming a burden to the narrative, Enkilum Chandrike is that light and zippy comedy with enough moments to make you laugh out loud.
Sumalatha arts club and its members are this movie’s central characters. Pavithran is the senior among them, and he is a bachelor. Abhi is the second guy, and he is in an unrequited love affair with a girl named Chandrika. Pavithran has a liking towards Chandrika’s elder sister. Things take a different turn when Chandrika’s marriage gets fixed with another guy. Stopping that wedding from happening becomes the goal of both Pavi and Abhi. And how they try to achieve that is what you witness in Enkilum Chandrike.
The texture of this comedy is somewhat similar to the vintage ensemble comedies created by Priyadarshan. A recent example I can find is Basil Joseph’s Kunjiramayanam. While Kunjiramayanam had its fair share of eccentricity, Enkilum Chandrike is not really pushing the comedy to that zone. Adithyan and Arjun restrict the humor at the border of being slapstick or being overdone. Hence they manage to convince the audience to not look for logic in the story. Yet, the movie never becomes a no-brainer entertainer.
Out of the many web series Adithyan has done before this debut feature film venture, the most talked about ones had a very serious and empathy-driven approach to the theme. But in Enkilum Chandrike, he has taken a very light topic. As I said, the movie’s strength is in the scripting that manages to include only relevant scenes. In these humor-oriented movies, the chance of containing pointless sequences is possible. But here, they have ensured that every scene has a purpose at some point in the story. Through the practical love story of Pavi and the unspoken love of Pavi’s companion Chandran, Adithyan ensures a sense of realness in the film. I really loved how he tweaked a seemingly emotional moment between Pavi and his aunt into a hilarious sequence.
Even though the movie is titled Enkilum Chandrike, the men are getting a large percentage of the screen time due to the script’s perspective. Suraj Venjaramood was very convincing as that pleasant lover, and his slang was spot on. Saiju Kurup is pretty much using his standard set of expressions, but the nature of the character suits those expressions. Abhiram Radhakrishnan as Bibeesh was hilarious, and it was somewhat different from his usual characters. Basil Joseph as the short film director, is very much playing himself, it seems. Aswin Vijayan, in his typical style, cracks some hilarious lines in the movie.
Niranjana Anoop plays the title character Chandrika and the screen time is minimal. I think Tanvi Ram, who played her sister’s character, has got a better screen space. Two actors who deserve to be mentioned are Narayanan, who was subtle and hilarious as broker Chandran, and Bhanumathi as Pavi’s annoying aunt. The comic timing of these two created some genuinely hilarious moments in the film.
Enkilum Chandrike is a simple, straightforward, humorous story that uses the flavors in the right amount to give the audience a constantly engaging experience. One can definitely say that, in totality, it has the sensibility of a YouTube sketch. But as long as it works, nothing else matters.
Enkilum Chandrike is a simple, straightforward, humorous story that uses the flavors in the right amount to give the audience a constantly engaging experience.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
