Among other ideas, Ganagandharvan, Mammootty’s newest film in Malayalam, wants to make a point: there are women who misuse the special provisions they “enjoy” under the law, to frame innocent people and get away with anything. To stress this, the film has created the character of a young woman who keeps reminding the audience, “I am a woman, they will believe what I say.”
The entire plot seems to have been written just to make that point. Needlessly, Mammootty’s character Ullas, leading the life of a married ganamela singer, gets entangled in a sham marriage to another woman to help her get an American visa. Athulya Chandra plays Sandra, the sort of woman who slaps a fruit vendor hit by her car, and explains it later as “attack is the best defence”. Her motto in life seems to be to utter such theories to whoever listens, and then form a few more on the way. Like, if your dad messes up, you should immediately try to go to America and then get into a sham marriage for it, no other country would do.
Director Ramesh Pisharody, who co-wrote the script with Hari P Nair, turns to comedy to talk about this very serious “flaw” in the system. They also make Sandra convincingly selfish and manipulative, conveying a message that women misuse the law’s leniency towards the gender to their advantage. Statistically, such false cases are low in number and considering the popularity of the medium and the star, the film gives the impression to the average viewer that the laws exist to frame innocent men.
To play the woman characters, however, Pisharody has brought in mostly new actors. Mini, Ullas's wife, who's the mother of an eighth grader, is played by the 23-year-old Vanditha Manoharan. Mini is the sari-clad woman of the house, who gets shouted at by the husband as ‘vivaramkettaval’ for washing his jacket without asking him, but who nevertheless seems happy until things go too wrong and she is forced to react. Vanditha does whatever she can in the sparsely written role. The 12 or 13 year old daughter has more emotions to express, getting mad at Ullas, or being embarrassed by him.
Ullas is the underdog, the singer who has never got a chance to sing in a movie but sings covers of old movie songs on stage after stage. To add to the mediocrity of his life, he is also treated badly by the band mates, gets pushed aside when a new singer comes in, and never makes it big. Maybe because of the red-tinted wig and earrings he wore during the flashback days, when he was falling in love with Mini? The annoying background music is meant to help you emote in these moments; spoiler – it doesn’t.
As if to make up for putting down his character so badly, Ullas gets “to wed” three women, as per his horoscope, with Innocent appearing on screen only to mention this great fact.
When he is not involved in sham marriages or passing by the kitchen, cracking a line like “navodanam (renaissance) means men enter the kitchen”, Ullas is with his ganamela troupe, even when there is no singing happening. Manoj K Jayan plays his closest mate, who is constantly approached by a marriage broker (Kochu Preman). Suresh Krishna plays a singer who wears only white clothes and becomes one of the few well-written characters. He has a past, a purpose in being there –you begin to appreciate the little joys by then. Ullas’s next door couple also brings in some humour, with the wife (Shiney Sarah) playing a physics professor and always talking about the subject. Then there is Maniyanpilla Raju, who for some reason, is made to wear false protruding teeth. But then, you don’t try to look for rational explanations after a point.
The director jumps between his ‘serious theme’ and his pet area: comedy. So even during a scene where a woman attempts suicide, he introduces Hareesh Kanaran momentarily to crack joke after joke that makes you long for Sandra’s new theories (or else a long power failure in the movie theatre). Many such characters flow in and out of the script before you can even recognise their face – Karamana Sudheer for a cycle ride, Ashokan as a cop for a hospital scene, Salim Kumar at some point, mimicry artists for a scene here or there, all for “laughs”.
Ganagandharvan tries too hard with badly written comedy. Except the occasional wisecrack or a reference to an old movie (the scene with Karaman Sudheer), the film is largely not amusing. But, if you're looking for mindless (that is, the capacity to ignore the message that it repeatedly plays out for you) and reasonably well-directed entertainment, you can sit through it.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film's producers or any other members of its cast and crew.