The honeymoon period continues for director Omar Lulu. His debut movie, Happy Wedding , for better or worse, is the sleeper hit of the season in Mollywood. The no-brainer comedy is still running to packed houses across the state a month after its release and that’s without a star actor to push up the stakes at the box office.
Actors Siju Wilson, Sharaffudeen, Justin John and Soubin Shahir, all of whom rose to fame with their standout supporting acts in last year’s blockbuster romedy Premam , star in the lead in Happy Wedding .
The film, according to the director, is “a journey of errors that eventually ends in a wedding. The film is just a fun ride.” It unfolds through the story of three engineering students – Hari (Siju), Manu (Sharafudden) and Tyson (Justin), while Soubin plays a motivational speaker, referred to only as ‘Bhai’ in the film. Hari and Shahina’s (newcomer Anu Sithara) love story progresses along a parallel track. “I had liked Siju’s performance in the short film Kattan Kaapi (2014) and thought he was the perfect fit to play happy-go-lucky Hari. Sharafudeen and Justin came on board after Premam . Getting Soubin was the difficult part as he had become one of Malayalam cinema’s most sought after actors by then. We were willing to work around Soubin’s schedule because only he, with his characteristic dry dialogue delivery, could play Bhai. All four actors have a great comic timing and carried the film on their backs,” says Omar.
The director insists that the success of his film is not a fluke. “We had an inkling that the film would do well while we were filming itself. The cast and crew used to crack up with laughter whenever we filmed a comedy scene. The same happened when the film went in for post production and it had the editing/sound team in fits,” says Omar. A native of Mundur, Thrissur, Omar is a civil engineer and construction firm owner, who taught himself direction through online tutorials.
In fact, he says, he’d never even been to a film set before he started work on Happy Wedding . “I’ve always been a huge fan of cinema and have always wanted to be a part of the industry. While in college my friends and I used to make shorts and that’s the only experience I have had, really. Several of the world’s best directors have uploaded masterclasses on the art of direction, all of which I studied diligently. Also, nowadays, many apps for filmmaking are available, which guide you with everything from positioning down to the lighting of each shot. It helped that the producer (Nazir Ali) was a friend and allowed me much leeway. The actual filmmaking was actually the easy part,” he explains.
The hard part was getting the movie screened; initially, the film was released in only 35 screens. “I suppose it happens to all small films that don’t have a star cast. Theatres here are mighty reluctant to take them on, perhaps fearing bad collections. It was only after word spread about Happy Wedding [mostly through word of mouth publicity and social media] that the number of theatres rose to 130. That shouldn’t be the case. Every film, big or small, deserves to be treated equally. There are a lot of talented youngsters out there and they all deserve a chance. The same goes for TV channels. At first they were reluctant to play the songs of our film but later acquiesced when it became a hit,” says Omar, as he signs off, a happy man.
