Jack N' Jill movie review: Manju Warrier, Soubin Shahir can't save Santosh Sivan’s bizarre sci-fi experiment

2/5

Story: Prodigy Keshavan aka Kesh, after winning a grant for his ground-breaking research on AI, returns to his roots in Kerala to continue his work titled Jack N Jill, which aims at enhancing human intelligence. Along with a virtual assistant Kuttapz, Kesh and his gang zero in on Parvathy, who suffers from amnesia, as a test subject. The experiment, though thought to have initially worked, begins to show discrepancies, leading to Parvathy going haywire. How does this bode for her, Kesh and the group of village goons form the plot. 

Review: Hitler, atom bomb, supermoon, artificial intelligence juxtaposed with sacred groves, superstitions, north Kerala ballads and mohiniyattam — in paper this makes for a quirky blend of elements while conceiving a sci-fi movie meant for the Malayali audience. And this seemed to have been the direction filmmaker Santosh Sivan was aiming at when he made Jack N' Jill, but then there is a thin line between quirky and bizarre when it comes to films with such concepts and Manju Warrier's latest theatrical release veers towards the latter.

Santosh's primary aim with the film seems to have been bringing out the contrast - be it setting a science lab in the middle of a kaavu, a virtual assistant showing off his disco moves while the test subject performs mohiniyattam, a killer with no remorse preferring to drink milk or how its central character Parvathy (Manju), who in her 'divine' avatar rides around town in a scooter decked up in traditional bharatanatyam attire and fights goons. As separate sketches, these might have had some entertainment value but when weaved to tell a coherent story, they just don't stick. 

Soubin Shahir's virtual assistant character of Kuttapz is probably the most entertaining in the film, always interjecting and stating facts when his human scientists and test subjects go off track. But the humour elements stay just within that character as the talents of artistes such as Aju Varghese, Basil Joseph and even Indrans, who as a failed experiment goes around spouting Hitler's lines, seem wasted in this venture. 

Even Manju seems lost in the film, an attribute that the makers can say is deliberate. But here half the time she has to be crazy with her character but it jarringly stands out when the film itself is confused whether to take itself seriously or not. Midway, you also get philosophy about freedom and nature conservation, and then out of nowhere it evolves into a revenge drama. Credit to Manju for making her action scenes believable in the movie, which has Kalidas Jayaram playing a scientist who is in constant doubt. Shailee Kishen's character, again, doesn't add anything to the plot. 

The movie has music by Jakes Bejoy, Ram Surendar and Gopi Sundar. While some tracks like Kim Kim Kim and Enganokke are hummable, the others fail to leave a mark. The VFX team has done a good job with the virtual assistant, giving it a quirky flavour. However, the sets of the film do feel like it's meant for a photoshoot rather than a full-length feature film. 

Verdict: If Jack N' Jill was Santosh Sivan's attempt at making a quirky sci-fi film set against a village backdrop, it falls way off the mark with the screenplay all over the place. The actors look equally confused in this experimental film that fails to hold interest and gets bizarre as the story progresses.