Paalum Pazhavum Review | A Tiring Lame Comedy That Laughs at Its Own Jokes

The central idea of the movie Paalum Pazhavum revolves around the marriage of a 33-year-old woman and a 23-year-old boy. The speed at which this online friendship gets converted into a legit marriage is so bizarre that when the plot tries to act normal in the second half, we, as an audience, would feel like asking the makers about the basic lack of sense in the movie. With the screenplay skipping through situations that just don’t make any sense, Paalum Pazhavum, directed by VK Prakash, is one movie that just celebrates stupidity with a coat of empowerment and enlightenment.

So Sumi is this 33-year-old woman who couldn’t pursue her career as a teacher as she was forced to take care of her mother. Sunil was a failed B.Tech student who wanted to start a gaming parlor, but his father never really supported him. After getting a job in the bank, Sumi’s colleague introduces her to the world of Facebook, and Sumi uses a fake date of birth. Sunil, on the other hand, had entered Facebook at a very young age with a fake date of birth. Things that happen in the life of these two when their friendship evolves into a married relationship are what we see in Paalum Pazhavum.

It is not a nonsensical comedy. In the movie’s second half, one can see the cliched tropes of one’s life influencing the other for the better, strained relationships getting better, etc. So when they introduced the concept of this unconventional marriage with such silliness, I was like, why did nobody in the backend of this movie understand the ridiculousness in the tale? Let me give you a brief explanation. Two people are chatting frequently. When they finally decide to speak over the phone, they are talking about marriage. And instead of a proper date, they choose to get married legally, and both of them and their friends are totally okay with it. Common sense is not at all common in this movie’s universe. I was hoping the movie would address the hastiness in the decision-making of the characters in the second half, but there again, everything was quite normal.

There is a point in the second half where Sumi insults a man older than her who wanted to marry her but had to give up since she married Sunil. The dialogue that the man’s mother says to Sumi is actually something that could create an interesting drama for a concept like this. But writer Ashish Rajani Unnikrishnan and director VK Prakash are only interested in going after lame comedy, and everything they have added in the film for the sake of making it funny has this caricature tone, and you just realize how disconnected some filmmakers are with the taste of the audience. The sentimental bits in the movie’s final act will induce cringe, and the humor feels more like an exaggerated side-track comedy.

In her second innings, there is this dialogue delivery issue in the performance of Meera Jasmine, and that is kind of visible in this movie as well. It is her expressions and believable looks that make her an apt choice for the character of Sumi. Aswin Jose has a set of eccentric expressions, and it seems like he is okay playing this stereotypical jobless womanizer character again and again in films. Shanthi Krishna was made to do comedy, and she was fine in that role. Ashokan’s over-expressive portrayal of the dumb bank manager was tough to sit through. Maniyanpilla Raju, Mithun Ramesh, Rachana Narayanankutty, Adil Ibrahim etc. are the other names in the cast.

The audience has very much made it clear that they are not okay with hodgepodge-assembled laughter gags. But it seems like the filmmakers are still in their delulu world, thinking some jokes, some sentiments, and a few songs packaged in a template format can entertain the audience, who has several other options to get entertained. Paalum Pazhavum had an interesting premise, but it didn’t even try to use that premise effectively.

By Aswin Bharadwaj

Founder and editor of Lensmen Reviews.

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