PremiumLittle Hearts movie review: Shane Nigam’s film is a string of squandered opportunities
Little Hearts review: Shane Nigam, Mahima Nambiar’s film feels dated and struggles to hold the audience’s attention even though it tries to pick progressive themes
Last Updated: 02.49 PM, Jun 07, 2024
Little Hearts story: Sibi and his father Baby live a simple life, taking care of their family friend Johnson’s cardamom estate and his family’s needs. Amidst this romance blooms in both Sibi and Baby’s lives, and he also has to play an integral role in breaking an important news about Johnson’s son's unexpected and impending wedding to the latter’s parents. Can Sibi handle everything without breaking any hearts?
Little Hearts review: Within the first few minutes, director Anto Jose Pereira and Aby Treesa Paul’s Little Hearts would remind the audience of several Kunchacko Boban movies of the last decade, where he played a do-gooder who goes out of his way to help people. Those movies centred mainly on delivering a social message and appealing to the family audience, and had the backdrop of harmless humour to achieve this end. Little Hearts very well falls into this category - that it is a harmless film with a Good Samaritan as its main protagonist and that it should have belonged to the last decade.
At its heart, the film, scripted by Rajesh Pinnadan is about three romances - one between its protagonist Sibi (Shane Nigam) and his childhood friend Shosha (Mahima Nambiar), the other between Sibi’s father Baby and a single mother, and the most promising premise being between Shosha’s brother Sharon (Shine Tom Chacko) and a foreigner. The latter two tracks are also the most interesting in the movie, and that’s why it feels like a squandered opportunity that the makers or the writer couldn’t really tie this up and instead tries to gravitate back to Sibi’s predictable story.
That Little Hearts had a promising premise of exploring how to break the news of a son, who is homosexual , to his parents while maintaining its feel-good vibes should have been a challenge that the makers should have focused more on, rather than give it a tame ending and use jokes for the sake of making it entertaining for the audience. In fact, it almost feels that the work of movies such as Kaathal: The Core was undone by Little Hearts, which tries to be progressive but doesn’t quite know how to be. It’s also during this track featuring Shine Tom Chacko that Little Hearts comes alive.
Similarly, the film’s subplot featuring Baby (Baburaj), a widower, and a single mother too had its heart at the right place. But much like the rest of the movie, the makers drag it out by bringing in characters that take away the focus on the duo’s relationship for the sake of stale laughs.
Shane Nigam gets to flex his comedy chops as Sibi in the film and does show another side of him as an actor. Baburaj aids him in this effort. But apart from the duo, none of the characters stand out. Shine Tom Chacko plays a rather subdued character in the film, which is a nice change. Credit should also be given to the directors for not making some scenes melodramatic, but that doesn’t prevent them from straying too far in the opposite direction - thereby minimising the impact of these scenes.
Though there’s an evident effort in Luke Jose’s cinematography to make the visuals feel breezy, the overuse of songs and the shallow screenplay don’t quite help achieve this.
Little Hearts verdict: Shane Nigam’s film could have easily been trimmed by a good 15 minutes and would have been a time-pass movie. It’s one of those films that is watchable and yet you tend to immediately forget once it’s over.