Mariyam Mukku

A sluggish first 20 minutes, an interesting 15 minutes after that and there after it just goes on and on without any specific aim (Don’t ask me whether I was looking at the watch, it is just a guess). Well known script writer James Albert’s first directorial movie titled Mariyam Mukku is an untidy script executed in a charmless manner. With only performances and some songs working for the movie, the overall experience is quite underwhelming.

It is basically the love story of Felix. A local goon in the beach side town named Mariyam Mukku, Felix is an orphan whose life doesn’t have any specific goal. With his childhood friend Salomi coming back to Mariyam Mukku after a long while, Felix starts to experience the beauty of romance which gradually takes away the beast in him. The romance gradually puts him in an insecure and uncomfortable position. The idea Felix uses to stay in the place with his love and the consequences that follows is what this movie mainly focusing.

At some portions it looks like a rebellious love story, there were a few sequences which reminded me of Meesamadhavan and Madhavan’s Chekku and the sub plot that had Lloyd looked like that outdated 70’s-80’s movie.   The deliberate attempt to make it a cheesy one and the lack of clarity in giving focus to the significant romance makes Mariyam Mukku an aimless journey. The entire second half of the movie falls in the easily predictable category and we can clearly see the lack of a skilled director in those portions.

Fahadh Faasil succeeds in transforming in to a fisherman who is aggressive and romantic. Through body language and the slang of the vocal language, he brings charm to Felix. VJ turned actress Sana Altaf is okay with her performance. If the good looking lady can work hard on her acting skills there is a possibility that the actress may stay here for some more time. Manoj K Jayan was nice in his character. Joy Mathew couldn’t handle his slang properly. Aju Varghese was kind of good in his partially negative character. Neeraj Madhav, Irshad, Sadiq, Santosh Keezhattoor, Pratap Pothen and too many others are there in this movie.

Apart from some humorous dialogues here and there, James Albert couldn’t contribute much to this love story. His characters lack depth, the story lacks uniqueness and plots are too fragile. The screenplay is untidy. Cinematography was good from Gireesh Gangadharan. Edits haven’t done much to rectify the sloppy script. Music was good from Vidyasagar. The theme music was nice, but the majority of background score sounded mediocre.

Overall, Mariyam Mukku disappoints with its content. Too much of predictability in a two and half hour film is not that easy to tolerate. My rating for Mariyam Mukku is 2/5. Now you decide.