Malayankunju review: Fahadh's survival thriller, through its cries of despair, speaks volumes about man and nature

4/5

Story: Anilkumar, who repairs electronics at his home, is a recluse, after suffering a personal tragedy. He lives with his mother and has a strained relationship with everyone else including his sister and neighbours. His frustrations peak after the cries of his neighbour's newborn interfere with his only solace - work. But after a landslide traps him several feet underground, the baby's cries become his only hope for survival.

Review: By now it’s a given that a Mahesh Narayanan script will have enough layers that will unravel with every watch. Each film of the filmmaker, who has served as a scriptwriter and cinematographer for debutant director Sajimon Prabhakar’s Malayankunju, is packed in layers of information that he has left for the audience to discern. But Malayankunju could be his most tightly-scripted film yet. He neatly weaves in elements that establish its protagonist in the first half and then plunge him, literally, into the depths of Earth in the latter half that becomes a survival thriller.

The film primarily revolves around a recluse youngster named Anilkumar (Fahadh Faasil) in a hilly terrain, who has kept to himself after the death of his father. The brilliance of the first half is that Mahesh’s script establishes the character and also the topography – building it piece by piece. We get to see his strained relationship with his neighbours and his sister, revealing his personal tragedy and reasons for the bottled-up emotions and inferiority complexes. Alongside, we are shown visuals of how a wild boar who had destroyed their crops was hunted down and even how sounds of animals are artificially recreated to create the atmosphere of the wild, where forest cover is dwindling due to human encroachment. All of this is done so expertly that when in the second half, the movie becomes a survival thriller, it hammers home nature’s fury and its form as the great leveller – literally and figuratively.

The makers had said that they had initially planned the movie as an OTT release but decided to pull the plug on the deal as it made more sense for a theatrical release. And it does. The second half of the film mostly revolves around Anilkumar being trapped 30 feet under and his struggles to come out alive. Here again, the movie is pregnant with metaphors – with Fahadh and a newborn crying out to their mothers for help. In a way, it’s also a wail of and to Mother Nature. It’s beautiful how the makers could meld the cry of despair into hope with just one act of nature, despite its tragic magnitude. Malayankunju shouldn't be weighed just based on its survival thriller portions as there are arguably better films out there. But the social commentary adds so much depth to this film.

Also read: Exclusive! Fahadh Faasil: Malayankunju is the toughest film I have done, we had to crouch, crawl to shoot it 

Fahadh lends authenticity again to his portrayal as a rural youth, who has his own paranoia and complexes. Despite his actions that border on cruel, there’s an underlying understanding that pervades between the other characters of the film for Anilkumar, seemingly reflecting the tolerance of nature for man’s actions, irrespective of how irrational they are. Fahadh excels in the sequences in the second half where he follows the child’s cry. His expressions of pain and anguish keep the audience rivetted. This is also where AR Rahman’s score adds the extra layer. There are portions in the film, where the protagonist squirms and crawls his way through for some semblance of hope that are pulsating because of the score.

Unlike most survival thrillers that revolve around a protagonist who is trapped, Malayankunju has scenes where the character is always moving. And that helps considering that the film could have otherwise been a claustrophobic experience. The makers also haven’t resorted to throwing one challenge after another in the survival portions for its protagonist, who has already been through enough in his life and the final leap of the film shows an even more gruelling uphill task ahead; but one that is filled with hope.

Also read: Exclusive! Fahadh Faasil: I was never claustrophobic, I am someone who finds comfort in a corner 

Sajimon Prabhakar makes a stellar debut with the movie, which also benefits a lot from its cinematography, art design by Jothish Shankar and some brilliant editing by Arju Benn. The film’s supporting cast of Jaffer Idukki, Indrans, Rajisha Vijayan, Irshad and Nilja K Baby as well as the debutants who played his neighbours make this story a rooted-to-reality tale that should push people to contemplate about how their corrosive actions – towards fellow beings and nature – can have far-reaching effects.

Verdict: Malayankunju is a film that hits you hard for its content while being a gripping watch in the theatres as well. This tightly-scripted, well-performed film also serves as a striking and relevant social commentary.