Marupadi

Instead of addressing the issue of harassment against women, the movie Marupadi directed by V M Vinu is somewhat exploiting the contemporary relevance of the theme. Repeating the used out theme of fraud drug case and subsequent struggle with all the clichés and exaggerations of those 80’s films, Marupadi simply doesn’t have the juice in it to make you feel for the characters.

The film is about this couple Abraham and Sara and their daughter Riya. Sara is an orphan who got married to her childhood friend Aby (Abraham). An issue in Aby’s professional life led to his transfer to the city of Kolkata. But what awaited them there was something tragic. How Aby and family goes through this phase is what Marupadi talking about.

Getting caught by the narcotics cell for carrying drugs which the protagonist never had an idea about is something which we are all familiar through movies and many real life incidents. In the case of Marupadi, the theme is very much based on this element. But they have overwritten a lot to set the background of all the characters and you know what? Even when the movie reaches the interval point, we are yet to see the real conflict of the movie. The torture the family had to face inside the prison is the main area of significance and that has least screen time and also a making style that reminds you of all those retro sentimental films. With everything becoming way too easy to predict, I don’t really feel that you will feel any sort of guilt when finally Sara asks for the reply.

V M Vinu hasn’t been in the best of his form in a while and most of his successful films had this old school melodrama in the narrative to support the emotions. The same formula gets repeated here and there isn’t any realness to the way they have created the rapport and bonding among the characters. The chemistry of the family and the relationship they have with the neighboring family doesn’t really look like a practically convincing one. At one point you may feel that Aby getting punished for the mistakes he made at work was the issue the movie addressing, but later we tend to realize that it had nothing to do with the theme in a striking way. Julaina Ashraf pitches the idea of women safety through a story that wasn’t precisely relatable to what happened to Jisha, Soumya or Nirbhaya. Frames were nice and the music from M Jayachandran was good. Art direction was also nice.

Rahman was just okay in being Aby and his RRRaju (Rajamanikyam) style dubbing with some tough Malayalam dialogues sounds awkward. The character of Sara was too heavy for the caliber of someone like Bhama. Baby Nayantara delivers a better performance when compared to Little Superman. There is a pinch of exaggeration in the sketch of almost all characters and even someone like Santhosh Keezhattur can’t make it look natural. The cast includes names like Tessa, Srinda, Arjun Nandakumar, Anjali and Devan in small roles.

After movies like Breaking News Live and 10 Kalpanakal, here is one more film that uses the issue of harassment against women but fails miserably to give an emotional output which will influence the audience.

Rating: 1.5/5