The interesting thing about the latest Basil Joseph starrer Ponman is that it does not depend on the story’s unpredictability to keep us hooked on the content. The script by GR Indugopan and Justin Mathew, based on the novel Naalanchu Cheruppakkar by Indugopan himself, builds drama in the story using the main man, Ajesh’s character. With his resilience to maintain the trust he has garnered over the years having that realness on screen, Ponman keeps you invested for its entire runtime, and to make things merrier, we get to see Basil Joseph shifting gears in his acting graph.
I am not someone who has read the source material. Hence this won’t be a book versus movie comparison. So, the movie is set around the marriage of a girl named Steffi. Since the family couldn’t manage money to buy the promised dowry gold, her brother Bruno gets to know about this option of getting the ornaments from a financer who will give the jewelry in advance and would take the money the family received as gifts after the wedding. PP Ajesh, the man in charge of this deal, had to face some difficulties in getting the money from Steffi’s family. The reason for that and how Ajesh goes in pursuit of his gold is what we see in Jothish Shankar’s debut directorial Ponman.
Imagining Basil Joseph as this strict, ruthless, and adamant guy who would go to any extent to get what he rightly deserves is tough, as most of the movies have made him this comical character with mature problems. But in the case of Ponman, one can see that the story is never relying on humor to be engaging. It is basically Ajesh shifting from a usual occupational problem to a larger occupational hazard. When the bride’s mother says there is a problem, Ajesh is like, “That’s usual. Let me know the level of the problem.” And the screenplay gradually makes it tougher for Ajesh by moving the story to a different landscape with a new set of characters.
How the movie portrays the transition of Ajesh and how that transition changes the dynamic he shares with people like Bruno and Steffi over the course of this incident is what makes the movie cinematically compelling. Jothish Shankar keeps the film in a very grounded setup, and Sanu John Varghese’s frames help him achieve that, as it never goes after glossy settings. The shift in the drama, especially in the second half, that shows you the backstory of Ajesh, and why he wouldn’t give up, are the areas that really humanize many characters in this movie. Without much melodrama, they succeed in establishing the circumstances that made some people fool Ajesh. The smoothness with which the songs are placed in the story is impressive, and Justin Varghese’s background score is used effectively to enhance the drama in the tale.
Basil Joseph, who plays the role of Ajesh in this movie, is the show stealer. In the teaser, there is that scene where he talks to Sajin Gopu’s Mariyano, and tells him how he might come up from his grave to get his gold. By the time the movie reaches the point at which this scene happens, we as an audience are no longer looking at Ajesh as a comical character. I think the success of Basil Joseph in this movie was how he transitioned from being a seemingly funny character to a “he means business” kind of character. In the second half, the lodge scene featuring him and Anand Manmadhan was so good because of his monologue about life that editor Nidhin Raj Arol rarely had to insert Anand’s reaction shot to keep it engaging. The confidence with which Ajesh approached a gigantic Mariyano never looked comical because of Basil’s performance.
Sajin Gopu as Mariyano is very convincing in terms of physique and he never becomes far too animated to make the character your typical bad guy. Lijomol as Steffi portrayed the various shifts in the attitude of that character neatly. Anand Manmadhan who got to play Bruno gets into the rhythm towards the end of the film. The political critiquing of the movie in the earlier portions had a caricature tone which sort of affected his performance as well. Sandhya Rajendran, as Steffi’s mother, gets a memorable role in this movie.
By keeping you intrigued about how the central character would go about a situation that looks impossible to crack and making him do stuff that you wouldn’t anticipate him to do, this dowry critique takes the shape of a situational thriller. By giving us a picture of PP Ajesh through the events of the story, which indirectly tells us what made him this person who never gives up, Ponman becomes a character study and a compelling drama at the same time.
By giving us a picture of PP Ajesh through the events of the story, which indirectly tells us what made him this person who never gives up, Ponman becomes a character study and a compelling drama.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
