Pennum Porattum, Rajesh Madhavan’s directorial debut, is an attempt to crack an eccentric satire. The movie aims to critique humanity’s judgmental and sadistic mentality by highlighting the differences between animals and humans in their responses to situations. While the humor inside the sequences and the overall structure of the story keep things alive, the points at which this movie surges into an inflated reality, Pennum Porattum enters a very slippery slope. I had seen the 122-minute festival version of this movie during IFFI 2025, and the theatrical cut has a reduced runtime of 120 minutes. I don’t know whether it is me rediscovering the film better in the second watch or them omitting the unwanted, but this version feels tidier despite the flaws.
The story is set against a village named Pattada. Charulata, an independent, strong girl from there, gets slutshamed by some illicit minds of that place when they got some half-baked information. In the meantime, Charulata’s boyfriend’s dog, Suttu, also gets accused of having rabies. Out of the blue, a normal day in that village becomes this hunt for Suttu, and a stage to character assassinate Charulata. How that transpires into something chaotic is what we see in Pennum Porattum.
In terms of execution, they have basically narrated the movie from the POV of the animals. Because in the minimal areas where we see only animals or people who have empathy towards them, the tempo and pitch are normal. But whenever the movie becomes something solely about humans or the animals observing humans, the tone is exaggerated. I am not saying it’s a bad strategy. It is a director’s craft choice, and on paper, it is an impressive approach. However, the risk with exaggerated takes, especially ones with humor, is that if you overdo it, the oddness it creates is very obvious. Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval, with whom Rajesh Madhavan has worked as an associate director, had done these two movies, Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham and Sureshanteyum Sumalathayudeyum Hridhayahariyaya Pranaya Kadha. I am talking about these two because, for me personally, even though both had a similar eccentric approach, the latter didn’t work because they were pushing each scene beyond a certain point. Pennum Porattum mostly follows the meter of something like a Kanakam Kamini Kalaham, but there are these efforts to caricaturize humans on screen, and that, at times, leads to a kind of overdoing.
Written by Ravi Sankar, who had previously co-written Rani Padmini and Bheeshma Parvam, the movie is conceptually interesting. The idea here is to create a chaotic comedy that features parallel narratives. The rooted setting and the style of making orthodox people confront the modern way of approaching lifestyles is making the idea look fun on a thematic level. The most hilarious bit in the movie is the sequence inside a house where two opposing gangs had to seek shelter from an attack. Rajesh Madhavan is adding metaphorical scenes where malice is getting transferred from one generation to another. When I saw the movie for the first time during the film festival, since the film’s approach was satiric, some episodes lingered on for far too long. While the approach is justifiable, the overdoing was not really helping the movie convey its politics smoothly, as the chaos was way too much. However, the new version manages to reduce the distractions to a good extent. The set pieces with slow-motion and unconventional music feel noisy rather than funny. What saves the film in those turbulent phases is the subtle humor, which we have seen in movies like Thinkalazhcha Nishachayam and all. The cinematography opts for wider lenses and a higher frame rate to create that absurdist feel to the visuals. The intricate sound design is, at times, the main element that conveys the intended emotion.
Even though the role has only minimal screentime, Raina Radhakrishnan was pretty effective as the main character, Charulata, especially in the climax confrontation scene. Rajesh Madhavan makes an appearance in the second half of the movie in a character we associate with him. Almost all the other cast members in the film are relatively new faces. Out of which the performances that felt impressive for me came from Shanooj Alanallur as Sujathan, Varsha Valsan, and Satheesh Pulikka.
For a movie of this style, I must say the visual effects quality and the production quality are on the superior side. From car drifts and chase sequences to pulling off shots featuring animals, there is a sincere effort to use scale effectively to narrate the story. If you have loved Senna Hegde’s Thinkalazhcha Nishachayam and Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval’s Kanakam Kaamini Kalaham, there will be phases in Pennum Porattum that will work for you. Even though the mad and exaggerated presentation of most characters makes sense when you look at the satirical intentions, on screen, those portions felt a bit like an overdone distraction.
