Read the full article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/the-very-likeable-and-entertaining-android-kunjappan-version-5-25-could-have-used-more-focus/
We all know men like this, men who are uncomfortable with emotion and choose to remain distant from their own families but can get along amazingly with strangers.
Spoilers ahead…
It’s a village in Payyanur. A religious rite is in progress. Someone has died, and prayers are being offered so that his soul may rest in peace. But here, the peace slowly begins to disappear. The officiating priest doesn’t seem to know the significance behind the rituals. The “helpful” people around begin to chip in, with “helpful” comments and suggestions. Gradually, we see that one man is beginning to stand out, being more “helpful” than the others. He’s one of those old men we know all too well, someone with no sense of time and place and propriety, someone to whom the feelings of others aren’t all that important. He’ll say whatever he wants, whenever, wherever. Crotchety, cantankerous, grumpy, ornery — you can throw the thesaurus at him, and every single descriptor would stick.
His name is Bhaskaran (Suraj Venjaramoodu), and he’s the protagonist of Android Kunjappan Version 5.25, written and directed by Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval. For a while, especially after the hilarious “sambar” joke at a local eatery, the film feels like the “amusing and easy rhythms of village life” drama that Malayalam cinema does so well, with characters being slowly sketched out with similarly easy rhythms. (Nothing is forced.) After a fall, Bhaskaran needs a caretaker, and one of his questions about the first one who takes up the job is about her caste: “Is she a Poduval?” (Refer, again, to the director’s name.) It’s not something we should be smiling about, but we do because he is an old man who is set in his ways — but more importantly, because his son, Subramanian (Soubin Shahir), softens the sting by noting that she belongs to a caste that’s higher than theirs.
Continued at the link above.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Honest Raj
November 27, 2019
What does 5.25 signify, if anything?
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krishikari
November 27, 2019
Love your malayalam film reviews best. Looking forward to seeing this one too.
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MANK
November 28, 2019
Terrific review
The problem with these movies, based on that one interesting concept, one Stunt, like an Android in a remote Kerala village, is that once the novelty wears off the film runs out of juice. You need really good writers and directors to keep the concept going for full length of a feature film. Lot of these new writers and directors can come up with interesting concepts and are good at filmmaking on a technical level, but they lack that skill, or aren’t experienced enough, yet for that
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Sutheesh Kumar
November 28, 2019
Honest Raj,
Just a tongue in cheek reference to the Android OS.
It could even be the director’s birth date, who knows, it might be his way of doing a Hitchcockian cameo.
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Sutheesh Kumar
November 28, 2019
On deeper observation this movie is a sly commentary on how these Android run smart phones are gradually turning us into Androids.
Summation: A severe case of technophobia.
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Anu Warrier
November 29, 2019
we are asked to believe that a company that knows that its robots could malfunction would casually send one along to a remote village
Ha! Heard of Boeing? 🙂
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Krishna
December 8, 2019
Looks like Robot & Frank.
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