Veyil

Shane Nigam’s new film Veyil directed by Sarath Menon is an elaborate story. The movie has multiple dimensions. It is a coming-of-age story of its hero. It has this Karma-based theme in its story. And it is also a story of a dysfunctional family. The movie is far from being perfect. But once the film reaches the climax, the character’s journey somewhere stays with you. Sarath Menon’s Veyil is an appreciable drama that needed a bit more intensity.

The movie revolves around Sidharth, aka Sidhu. His elder brother Karthik was an extremely studious guy. Sidhu wasn’t interested in being educated and smart, and thus his mother was always mad at him. Veyil isn’t about any particular event in Sidhu’s life. It basically shows a series of events and multiple phases in his life that molded him as an individual.

Sarath Menon wants to set up a wider world. By the time the film ends, he wants the viewer to know who all were there for Sidhu and what all kinds of dilemmas through which he has gone through. It looks like a compelling idea to create a character-driven drama on paper. To an extent, Veyil even achieves that. But the screenplay isn’t that consistent in holding our interest in these characters. One of the reasons for that is the stereotypical short-tempered character given to Shane Nigam. Sidhu losing his cool is a major thing for the script. But since we are familiar with Shane playing such a character in almost all of his films, there is no sense of tension.

Shane Nigam’s performance as Sidharth is indeed a major positive of this drama. He might be using the same tools to express the state of his character. Still, the earnestness is evident, and that really elevates the performance. Sreerekha as the mother of Sidhu, was really impressive. Saeed Imran as the elder brother of Sidhu also created a good impression (btw, it took me a while to realize that Shane was the younger brother). James Elia got a meaty role in this film as Baby Mathew. Sona Olickal, as the female lead, is a promising talent.

As I said, the structuring of the script wants us to understand Sidhu elaborately. Sarath succeeds in portraying Sidhu as someone who wasn’t heard by others. But the elaborateness is tricky as it will force the director to decide where to skip, where to skim through, and where to emphasize. In that aspect, Veyil is struggling a bit, and thus the impact gets reduced. The way the dynamic between characters changes in this movie was an interesting one. Editor Praveen Prabhakar had done an appreciable job maintaining a certain pace even when the film was lingering on to certain phases of Sidhu’s life. Pradeep Kumar’s music was extremely catchy.

Veyil is a slow burn drama that works partially. As I said in the beginning, the movie feels like a genre blend as it explores the story of Sidhu from three different angles. The unevenness in the screenplay in some of these perspectives is the shortcomings of this film. But in totality, Veyil feels like an okay character exploration drama.