Saigal Padukayanu

To bare the melodrama in the new Sibi Malayil film Saigal Padukayanu you will have to be a diehard follower of all those tacky Malayalam daily soaps. Soaked in outdated dramatic style, this “de addiction” movie never really touches the heart with its content or the performances. Publicized as a musical film, Saigal Padukayanu has these excerpts of unplugged versions of classic hits which sort of help the movie in being enjoyable occasionally.

The film is basically the life story of a singer Chandrababu. His father and mother were from different religions and they raised him without any religion. Even though he was blessed with music, the guy had to earn a living by riding an auto rickshaw. The main focus of the movie is his decision to get married and the incidents that happened after that, which really shattered his whole life.

T A Razak’s other screenplays also had this enormous amount of drama, but in those movies there were some solid performers who added life to the characters and situations created by the writer. The major drawback of the film was the performances. Except for Hareesh Peradi and Rajesh Sharma, none of the other actors managed to impress the viewers. With Sibi Malayil treating the film in the same old fashion, it becomes easy for us to predict the preach.

Shine Tom Chacko struggles hard to be Chandrababu. There are certain philosophical/emotional dialogues for his character and the actor was miserable in dialog delivery in those portions. Remya Nambeesan was also a victim of melodrama. Sithara lacked energy. The kid was okay. As I said Hareesh Peradi and Rajesh Sharma succeeds in creating an impression. Santhosh Keezhattoor is that over venomous theatrical villain. Siddique as usual delivers a quality performance.

Sibi Malayil sadly can’t add life to Mr. Razak’s highly dramatic and easily predictable script. It is the same old story of self destruction and the director follows the same old style to depict it on screen. If it had a very contemporary backdrop with a more sensible socio political equation, the emotional trauma of the characters would have grabbed a slot in our hearts. Cinematography and edits are just okay. The background score wasn’t that appealing but the music was nice.

If you are someone who likes extreme melodrama on screen Saigal Padukayanu may work for you. The rating for this Sibi Malayil movie is 2/5. Chances of someone quitting that bad habit after seeing this chain of clichés is quite low.