Film: Oru Muthassi Gadha
Starring: Rajini Chandy, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Lena, Aparna Balamurali
Direction: Jude Anthany Joseph
For a young filmmaker who has had a wildly successful debut with a peppy film, the subject that Jude Anthany Joseph chose for his sophomore effort comes as a major surprise. In ‘Oru Muthassi Gadha,’ he tackles issues of old age. Serious drama, it is not. Jude retains the light-hearted treatment that made ‘Om Shanthi Oshana’ a favourite with the audience.
At the centre of the story is grumpy old Leelamma (Rajini Chandy) who is literally a pain for those around her. Her wilfully irritating behaviour drives her son (Suraj Venjaramoodu), daughter-in-law (Lena) and grandchildren, which whom she lives, to their wit’s end. The plot takes a turn when the family goes for a long trip without her, leaving her with another grandma, Susamma (Bhagyalakshmi).
Unlike Jude’s debut, where the story and situations evolved naturally, here you get a feeling right from the start that he is setting this situation up towards a self-help/motivational/feel-good ending. This starts from the way the character of Leelamma is written. She is portrayed as excessively annoying, insulting her son’s friends, abusing the servants, picking up fights with everyone in the locality and constantly troubling her grandchildren, almost to an unnatural level.
Later, when the expected turnaround in character comes, she goes to the other extreme, generally being extra nice to everyone. Then, you are given the reasons for her behaviour, which makes you go – “That’s all?”
The enjoyable parts of the film are where it does not take itself too seriously, especially those stretches where the old woman explores her own dormant feisty side.
Occasionally, the film adopts a preachy tone too, doling out advice in equal measure to the elders and the young ones. Heartening was the positive portrayal of a Bengali migrant worker, unlike the prejudiced ones in some recent films. But one wished the script did not throw us that ‘twist’ regarding him in the end.
Part of the film draws inspiration from the Rob Reiner film ‘Bucket List,’ a fact which it acknowledges in an indirect way through a dialogue between the two characters, probably to pre-empt accusations of plagiarism.
Jude also does an interesting self-reference by bringing in some characters from ‘Om Shanti Oshana,’ forcing us to see the central characters from a film as mere footnotes in another. The director and Vineeth Sreenivasan make extended cameo appearances too.
Despite the inconsistencies in character portrayals and at times contrived situations, ‘Oru Muthassi Gadha’ remains an engaging watch, al though Jude certainly has fallen quite a few steps behind from where he managed to reach with his debut.
S.R. Praveen