Hridayam preview: All you need to know about Pranav Mohanlal, Vineeth Sreenivasan’s movie

Among the hugely-anticipated movies expected to revive theatres in Kerala such as Mohanlal’s Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham, Mammootty’s Bheeshmaparvam and Dulquer Salmaan’s Kurup is another movie that might not feature big stars, but still has that pull among the youth audience – Hridayam.

Directed by Vineeth Sreenivasan and starring Pranav Mohanlal, Kalyani Priyadarshan and Darshana Rajendran in pivotal roles, the movie is touted to be a coming-of-age tale that revolves around the three characters. The film marks Vineeth’s fifth directorial after Malarvardi Arts Club, Thattathin Marayathu, Thira and Jacobinte Swargarajyam. Each of the four were superhits and earned Vineeth, prompting many to call him as “director who knew the pulse of the audience”. Apart from the trio, Hridayam also has Aju Varghese, Arun Kurian, Vijayaraghavan and Prashanth Nair.

What is Hridayam’s story?

While almost everything about Hridayam has been kept under wraps, there were rumours that the movie was based on Vineeth’s and wife Divya’s lives. However, the filmmaker clarified that it wasn’t based on a particular person, but it draws from their memories as well as their friends’ about their campus life. The movie is also bigger than Vineeth’s previous films that mostly had Nivin Pauly in the lead except for Thira, which had Shobana and Dhyan Sreenivasan.

The team had shot in Kochi, Palakkad and Chennai, where Vineeth also filmed at his alma mater KCG College of Technology. A song sequence of the film was also picturised in Hyderabad. In a social media post, after wrapping up its shoot in Kochi, Vineeth had said that shooting Hridayam was the most fun he had since Thattathin Marayathu.

The movie wrapped up its shoot in March and Vineeth said that what was charted for 100 days was completed in 60 days, as the team managed to pack in more work per day due to the pandemic. “But every day was a party. We sang, danced, laughed, worked relentlessly and kept our focus on the film,” he shared, on his social media page.

Who does Pranav Mohanlal play in Hridayam?

Hridayam is Pranav’s third film as a hero after Jeethu Joseph’s Aadhi and Arun Gopy’s Irupathiyonnaam Noottaandu. The film reportedly has him playing the character Arun and revolves around his life in college and after marriage. Kalyani Priyadarshan plays one of the two female leads in the movie and it marks Pranav’s second collaboration with the actress after their song sequence in Marakkar: Arabikkadalinte Simham. Darshana Rajendran, who won critical acclaim for her performance in C U Soon and Aanum Pennum recently, plays the other lead actress.

In an earlier interview, Vineeth had talked about working with Pranav and Darshana in the movie’s first schedule. He described Darshana as a “spontaneous artiste”, while Pranav would reach the sets 15 minutes in advance and would memorise all his lines, thus saving the team’s time.

In a post reminiscing about the day Kalyani agreed to be part of Hridayam, Vineeth recalled how he had begun his journey as a singer. “After stepping out of her house in Valluvarkkottam, I sat in my car for a while. That’s the same place where I went to meet Priyan uncle and Vidyasagar sir for a voice test when I was 18… it took me forward, the beginning of an amazing journey started from there,” he said.

In a recent interview with OTTplay, Vineeth said that he narrated the story of Hridayam to Pranav, Darshana and Kalyani in 2019. "What I have tried with his movie is to cast actors based on their real-life personalities and use that for their characters. This was the case for Appu, Kalyani, Darshana or all the other actors who are part of Hridayam. I tried to understand their personality and bring those traits into their roles, rather than retrofitting them into the character moulds. This has often worked well for me while collaborating with actors," he said. 

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How many songs are there in Hridayam?

Vineeth’s romantic drama has a total of 15 songs, making it a Malayalam film with the most number of tracks in the recent past. For Hridayam, Vineeth has opted to work with Hesham Abdul Wahab instead of his usual collaborator Shaan Rahman.

Initially people had thought there was a rift between the best friends but Shaan was quick to clarify that they are still on good terms and Hesham was a “might of talent who needed a perfect movie to show the world what he could truly do”. Shaan was also busy during the composing of Hridayam, which was happening the same time that he was working on Love Action Drama, Helen and Kunjeldho. Shaan said his support was more needed for the first-time directors.

The music of Hridayam is already much awaited because Hesham has roped in a lot of talented singers including KS Chithra, Sachin Warrier, Job Kurian Sachin Balu, Megha Josekutty, Mohammed Maqbool Mansoor, Arvind Venugopal, Vimal Roy, Bhadra Rajun, Srinivas, Unni Menon and Swetha Ashok. Actors Prithviraj Sukumaran and Darshana have also sung tracks. Vineeth’s wife Divya, who made her singing debut with Sara’s, has also rendered a song, written by Vineeth in the film. Hridayam also features a track by Istanbul Ensemble and Cochin Strings. Another important news that Vineeth let out a few months ago was that the music of Hridayam will also be released in cassettes and CDs for a limited time.

When will Hridayam release?

Hridayam was initially supposed to release in 2020 Onam is produced by Visakh Subramaniam’s Merryland Cinemas and co-produced by Noble Babu Thomas. Visakh had earlier told OTTplay, that like rest of the film industry, he is betting big on releases such as Marakkar, Kurup, Aaraattu and Hridayam to draw the audience back to theatres. “All these films are of different genres and would appeal to different kinds of audiences. If the makers of these movies opt for theatrical releases, within two months of reopening, we can definitely see huge crowds in front of the theatres,” Visakh told us.

Incidentally, when the film’s shoot was stalled after the first lockdown in 2020, the producer said that both Vineeth and Pranav Mohanlal had not taken their remuneration to minimise the losses suffered by the makers and stood with him, so that the film will be a theatrical release. Even though Hridayam got several offers from OTT platforms, the producers decided not to pursue a direct-to-streamer release keeping in mind the impact it would have on theatres across Kerala.

In a social media post, Vineeth too said that it has been a spectacular journey and that the plan is to bring the movies to the audience soon. “The dream has always been a theatrical release and we are still holding on to it,” he wrote.

The film is set to release in theatres across the world on January 21, 2022. 

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