Natholi Oru Cheriya Meenalla

My review: Natholi Oru Cheriya Meenalla

"Natholi Oru Cheriya Meenalla" (NOCM) is a movie with a novel plot and narration, makes up for a riveting viewing. Movie follows the narrative style of story within the story. The concept of the conflict between the conscious vengeance and the unconscious drives and wishes which might get entangled in a writer's work is the basic theme of the movie on which an interesting plot is woven with ingredients for an enjoyable watch.

 Shankar Ramakrishnan has written the story, screenplay and the dialogues. He has written an unconventional script in a comprehensible manner. He explores how pent-up anger might rear it's head in a writer's plot and how he might start manipulating his characters to settle his scores. But it won't be easy as the unconscious drives  try to interfere and a battle ensues. The writer and his character which is his manifest-unconscious try to pull the story away from one another according to their satisfaction, in the end who wins the battle needs to be seen in the big screen.

Movie also throws light at when one start viewing people through the prism of preconceived judgement of the one who introduces them, then human mind would find it hard to look beyond the subjectively opinionated point of view. And when a writer starts writing a story based on those characters  this subjectivity would strongly bias the way the characters are written. One should guard against it and not judge people by hearsay.

From what i have mentioned in the previous two paragraphs the readers might think that the movie is abstract and philosophical, but the truth is Shankar along with the director V.K.Prakash have presented the movie in a lucid and tangible manner at the same time not watering down the narrative richness.

Fahad Fazil, who has made it a habit of choosing interesting and meaningful scripts has done it again this time too. Not only he has chosen the right script, he has done a brilliant job in portraying the two characters he plays in this movie. He shows nice contrast between the characters, one a demure, earthy "small fish" Preman aka Natholi and the other suave, greyish and audacious Narendran. Fahad is fast turning out to be the most talented young actor of Malayalam cinema at present. Kamalini Mukherjee lends good support though at certain points she irritates with her anger outbursts (may be intended to be like that). Rima Kallingal has a very brief role.

Bijibal's background score is good, supports the narration well. Abhijit Shylanath's songs are melodious and good. Arun James is the cinematographer who has not given any scope to complain his work. Movie boasts of slick technical values.

Just over two hours, movie is crisp and entertaining. Yet another must watch Fahad Fazil's movie.

Bottomline: Oru cheriya filmalla...!!

3.5/5