Spoilers ahead…
The film is a story of redemption, the transformation of a machine into a man. And the agent of this transformation is a natural calamity.
There’s a lot of rain in Malayankunju, directed by Sajimon Prabhakar. The roofs are leaking into buckets on the floor. Outside the home, plastic sheets are not helping. The weather reports are going on about “yellow alert” and “orange alert”. But the first hour of the film, beautifully written and shot by Mahesh Narayanan, is more about the cloudy, moody conditions in the mind of Anil, played by Fahadh Faasil. He wasn’t always this way. But a tragedy changed him. There’s a telling image early on, after he bathes and prays and begins to brush his hair. He doesn’t look at the mirror that is right in front of him and which the camera focuses on. We see Anil’s reflection more clearly than we see Anil, who is out of focus. What kind of man cannot bear to see himself? Someone with low self-esteem? Someone broken? Someone who doesn’t care anymore? Anil is all of the above.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/malayalam/movie/review/malayankunju
And you can watch the video review here:
Copyright ©2022 GALATTA.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Sri Prabhuram
July 22, 2022
Seems Fahadh Faasil needs a bigger cap to fit all of these feathers in it.
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Rohit Sathish Nair
July 22, 2022
Are the songs (ARR’s 2nd Malayalam album and his 1st after 30 years) included in the movie?
Also, is ‘Yoddha’ kinda under-discussed as a ‘unique’ Malayalam album because it’s too short (3 songs including a B-sider)?
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ravenus1
July 24, 2022
Saw the film today, and I didn’t like it as much as you did. The emotional angle is, like Rahman’s overbearing music, very on the nose and cliched, it could have been more internalized. The scene where a character tells Fahadh that “caste and creed only last till death” is so message-y I was cringing. The claustrophobic survival /escape scenes are excellently done, but they form a smaller part of the narrative than I was hoping for. It feels like the script was heavily tuned for mass commercial appeal.
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brangan
July 24, 2022
ravenus1: I felt the emotional angle IS very much internalised. The music makes it seem very on the nose. And yes, that line is messagey and cringey but given the surreal nature of this sequence, this did not bother me too much as there were other things going on.
And I loved the first half — a typically underplayed character study. The plot cliches are compensated for by the treatment.
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Alex John
July 24, 2022
I went to watch this movie after reading BR’s review, and walked out of the theater rather disappointed.
Of course, it goes without saying that Fahad is incapable of being less than terrific in any role he sinks his teeth into, but apart from that this movie had nothing much to offer me. I mean, what did Fahad’s character transform from, and what to? To a man who gets emotional after saving a baby? Well the problem is, he was THAT to begin with. He certainly does things he wouldn’t be proud of, but the movie unnecessarily justifies those acts, thus diminishing the impact of his behavior in the beginning of the film and leaving the audience without having a dire need to see him become something/someone else. I felt the movie was under-written, and hence lacking any serious emotional punch.
Fahad had a better transformation story in ‘Diamond necklace(2012)’ where his character was an A-hole and a reckless money-spender before his own experiences shaped him into a better person.Malayan Kunju is certainly a competently made film, but to me, it left a lot to be desired.
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H Maran
July 25, 2022
have always mentioned you to my friends to defend Rahman.. how you unabashedly love him.. even with IR and MSV who praise them reservedly only saying IRs tunes is not free flowing and MSV bgm and stuff is not great etc.. my friend told me in your latest review you didn’t like Rahmans BGM.. my heart sank.. glad you at least justified it.. and didn’t trash it like you thrashed IR’s ass when you wrote you want to watch the movie on mute to escape his BGM assault.. lol!
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Sai Rajasekar
July 25, 2022
Anyone felt the soundtrack to be similar to Gustavo Santaolalla’s theme in Babel ?
It was haunting me since I saw Malayankunju last night
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Sai Rajasekar
July 25, 2022
Glorious comeback for ARR to malyalam cinema
It’s not a score one would imagine with the scenes normally.
BGM’s done by himself i suppose and not Qutub-e-kripa
Waiting for what he’s done in Adujeevitham🙏
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Madan
July 25, 2022
Wonder if this film’s score is an incredible Qutub e Kripa effort or, for real, even ARR went for an overpowering score. Maybe no-one can escape the Hans Zimmer effect, ugh! To the other poster’s comment, the last time Raja gave a vintage score, as good as any in the old days, was Kadhal Kavithai. Since then they have either been patchy with moments of the vulnerability he could express before (Sethu, Pithamagan, Virumaandi, Cheeni Kum) or just outright loud. Or grand, if you please, but that grandeur has to be fit for purpose otherwise it’s just a wall of sound.
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hari
July 26, 2022
The theatre I went to, had the BGM played at a loud volume, which made the movie very difficult to watch especially during the second half. Being so used to silence in Malayalam movies, the BGM was too over bearing for me. I had to shut my ears at a lot of places.
After watching so many Malayalam movies in OTT, I picked this one for my first theatre experience, but was not that satisfying.
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Madan
July 27, 2022
So this is everywhere. Wish they would do something about the mixing. It really mars the theatre experience. If you are going to make the audio mix only for people who watch on the phone and like loud music, don’t bother releasing it in theater, no?
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JPhil
August 15, 2022
The movie apart,great review BR – single malt stuff !
Lots of allegories in the post landslide section to his rebirth – the curious architecture of the rubble- like a uterus , the amniotic fluid ,the feeding from a drip of water, the muffled sounds and the final exit from a tunnel .
Couldn’t agree more re AR s work . Too grandiose in part ; needed more silences certainly and also more rooted/indigenous instruments ? His commissioning was an afterthought . They approached him after the movie was shot and perhaps he was working to a deadline and somewhat forced to make songs and a more ‘ mainstream ‘ BGM to suit the theatrical release …?
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brangan
August 15, 2022
JPhil: Yes, the most fascinating aspect of the film is the ‘machine’ being ‘reborn’ through a series of visual metaphors. And it’s the father who plats the ‘seed’ and awakes ‘new life’ in him.
About the score, I honestly feel they decided to go with it because it’s too long a stretch that’s nearly silent. And general theatre audiences may get restless. (They really cannot bear silence. Which is why our movies are almost always over-scored, or have dialogue, or something ‘aural’. A composer told me this.)
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sanjana
August 15, 2022
The first half was good. Instead of becoming an angel, he could have become less rude towards everyone. Wish his mother lived to see a less rude son. A too predictable second half.
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