Neeyum Njanum from A K Sajan suffers from having a scattered agenda and tiring length. A very basic love story sort of gets dragged into a moral policing vs. trust kind of scenario and even though some of the comedy bits might make you giggle a bit, there isn’t much of a feel factor here to make it work as a love story for the viewers. An earnest Anu Sithara tries her best to win the empathy, but the story wasn’t really helping her as a support.
Yakub is a young police officer who was asked to follow a girl named Hashmi whose brother had naxal connections. During the course of it both of them fell in love and because of the lack of support from family, they decided to move to a new place. The financial difficulties burden the couple and the movie Neeyum Njanum shows us one tough phase in that relationship and how they surpassed it.
At one point I thought the movie is going to be in the zone of films like
Perumazhakkalam or Gaddhama. Because the story was going in that direction after a graceless and hasty one hour of stalking romance. But suddenly A K Saajan decides to take a drastic detour and makes it this shutter like one room thriller where a stranded couple has to survive the judgmental attitude of a moral policing mob. This part of the screenplay is kind of stuck on finding intrigue and was relying too much on side track humor. Some of the references they made in the second half made me wonder whether they reshot the film after some of the recent incidents. The first half is largely on the duller side and the supposed to be nervous second half looks like a hastily written thought. Because of that, this movie that addresses the trust in a relationship can’t really focus on that part.
Sharaf u dheen surprised all of us last year in Varathan by becoming an antagonist. Here he becomes the hero who is naïve. But you can see him going back to his Girirajan tone in many places and that sort of reduces the genuine nature of the character. In the second half he was hardly there in the movie, but whenever he appeared his character made sense. The positive of this movie for me was Anu Sithara who as that vulnerable and faithful Hashmi manages to add humaneness to the story. Her performance never really goes into that melodramatic zone and that helps the movie in not being overly cheesy. Siju Wilson as Shanu doesn’t really have much of a challenge here even though he is there for the entire second half. Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Soumya Menon and Shaheen Siddique are there for saving the second half through comedy. Appunni Sasi repeats his stereotypical character. God knows the need of Dileesh Pothan and Surabhi Lakshmi in this movie. Aju Varghese was forgettable.
A K Saajan is known for writing thrillers with twists and turns. But here he moves very political and earthy in terms of story selection. Presentation still has the same old style. I still don’t understand why some filmmakers are so attached to the stalking romance we see in movies. A K Saajan creates a Yakub who dominates over Hashmi with a naïve smile. And like I said, the film is divided into two halves that have nothing in common in terms of treatment. The way the plot evolved in the second half, I thought the screenplay got developed organically on the set. Hashmi survives the mob’s character assassination by hiding something that had nothing wrong and I found that problematic. Songs are fine, but some are placed awkwardly. The technical aspects of the movie don’t really make a strong impression.
Neeyum Njanum is dramatic, scattered and overly long. The performances and some discrete humor moments are the only highs here. If your content doesn’t have the magic of romance, even the voice of Mohanlal won’t be able to save it.
Rating: 2/5
Neeyum Njanum is dramatic, scattered and overly long. If your content doesn’t have the magic of romance, even the voice of Mohanlal won’t be able to save it.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
