Ruminations of a meandering mind

Whenever actor, writer Sreenivasan picks up the pen and writes a script, one expects the movie to turn out well. His stories are simple and more often than not, there are characters that one can identify with. Udayananu Tharam (UT), the latest film penned by Sreenivasan is no different. One of the very few good films to come out in Malayalam in recent times, Udayananu Tharam is a satire on the film industry.

The story is about a struggling assistant director Udayabhanu (Mohanlal), who has ambitions of directing a film himself. He writes a winning script and is just about ready for the venture. Sreenivasan plays Rajappan, a struggling actor, who steals and sells Udayan's script to a top producer on condition that he will play the hero. The film creates wonders at the box office and Rajappan becomes a movie icon. Udayabhanu in the meantime, nurtures his hatred against Rajappan and gets the opportunity to exact revenge when ironically he gets to make his first film with Rajappan as the hero, thanks to the kind hearted producer Baby Kutty (Mukesh) who has faith in the abilities of Udayabhanu. Rajappan becomes impossible to direct thanks to his superstar tantrums on the sets. Will Udayabhanu complete his dream film and will he succeed in doing so? These answers form the crux of the latter half of the film.

UT succeeds in showing the intricacies of movie making. It depicts the struggles and travails of the producer and director from the time they decide to get the right stars to work in the film, managing the film without it going over budget, keeping a regular check on the dates of the actors involved so as to finish all their shots before it is too late and a final race against time to complete the film and get the movie shown in the theatres on the promised date. UT also works showing the idiosyncrasies and the colossal egos of the stars and how they become difficult to manage. It attempts ample digs at the mallu film industry and succeeds because of the refreshing humor, which only Sreenivasan can so convincingly tell in his scripts.

Newcomer Rosshan Andrrews makes an impressive debut as a director. I particularly liked the way he handled the climax of the film that could easily have gone awry. The music of the film by Deepak Dev is hummable although UT lacks any one great track. A special mention for very good camera work by S Kumar.

Coming to the performances;Meena as the female lead is not half as convincing as the male leads but she does a fair job of looking the part. Mukesh is his usual pleasing self and shares a great on screen camaraderie with Mohanlal. Jagathy Sreekumar in the brief cameo is brilliant. Probably one of the best character actors in India today, Jagathy proves that it doesn’t always take a large role to leave an impression. Mohanlal in the title role is very convincing and brings back some of his old magic. Although the performance is not in the same league as some of his earlier films, I am thankful that he has come out of the “larger than life hero" image which was becoming impossible to bear with each passing film. Very rarely does a supporting actor steal the show from the lead actor and I think the movie belongs to Sreenivasan. As the obnoxious struggling star that steals the script to the superstar whom everybody loves to hate, Sreenivasan delivers as only he can. To call him brilliant would be an understatement. If as a scriptwriter, he is innovative, then he tops this with a superlative perfomance as an actor.

Don’t expect a masterpiece in UT; watch it just to convince yourself that good films are still being made in Malayalam although not with the same frequency as a few years back.