Oliver has a to-do list jotted down in a diary when he is getting his young son’s help to ‘set up’ a new smartphone. Everything from WhatsApp to paying electricity bills through the phone, old Oliver, balding and bespectacled, wants to learn. The scene is from a new Malayalam film on Amazon Prime, titled Home, but it can’t be too unfamiliar to most families with older people trying to learn the ways of a new world from the younger disinterested lot. On cue Oliver’s young son shrugs impatiently, “Pappa onnu poye” – Oh stop it, Dad.
Indrans, an actor who began doing comedy in the 1990s and later started taking on serious characters and delivering them well, plays Oliver. Oliver Twist in full. “That name was given by the character’s father, who is supposed to be this great typist who translated a lot of writers' work (Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist being one of them). He could not get those characters out of his head and named his children after them,” says Indrans in an interview to TNM.
Indrans is engrossed with the film, you can tell. He speaks affectionately of the film’s theme and its characters. “These are things I experience in life. I am not technologically savvy. Neither is my character. It was easy for me to portray the character. I think it happens in most homes, everyone can relate to it,” he says.
Watch: Trailer of Home
When the role came to him, he had nothing to think about, he says. “I accept all the movies that come to me but this one I took on rather eagerly. It is the kind of character I never got before and it’s got a great message to tell. Also its director (Rojin Thomas) and producer (Vijay Babu) are people who do big movies,” Indrans says with the natural humility he is famous for.
He has been making it a habit in recent years to appear in well-made films, and getting lauded for his performance in those films. It was a late but much deserved recognition that Indrans got, critics said, when he won the state award for Best Actor (Male) for his ‘vayassan’ (elderly) character in Aalorukkam a few years ago. He played to perfection the conflicted dad whose missing son turns up years later as a happily married trans woman. In the years that passed, he kept proving himself over and over again – among them the horrified grandfather in Mundrothuruthu, the lead character in Buddhanum Chaplinum Chirikkunnu, and the displaced Dalit family man in Veyilamarangal which brought on a red carpet welcome for him and the film’s crew at the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2019.
“I like serious and comic characters as long as they stay true, characters which remind you of some real life person you have known. It does not matter if it is comedy or serious, positive or negative. I’d say it is easier to do comedy though,” says Indrans.
Read from archive: Swinging from comedy to tragedy: Versatile actor Indrans interview
In Home, it is a mix of both – serious and comedy – but there’s little that could bring you “pain” he says. It is more or less a fun film. It didn’t exactly make him tech savvy at the end of the day but it did teach him that it is important to learn more technology. “I am aware of both sides of the story. That if I get addicted to it, I wouldn’t even have time to read a book. But I have also known from experience that it can come to your aid at urgent times. Once when I had to book an urgent ticket and there was no one I could rely on at the time, I knew the importance of learning to do it on your own.”
Poster of Home
Indrans still carries a basic mobile phone and still has no WhatsApp. His son, like the son in the film, has tried to teach him several times. “I think he must have given up in the end, he doesn’t speak of it any longer,” Indrans says with a soft laugh.
In the film, Sreenath Bhasi and Naslen play his two sons, and Manju Pillai his wife. “It was all so much fun I didn’t want to split from the team. I wished Sreenath and Naslen were my kids in real life. And Manju with her special traits, all of them were so good,” Indrans says.
The only sad part was that because of the COVID-19 pandemic they all had to maintain their distance from each other through the filming. They still had their fun, but they could not enjoy each other’s company like in normal times, Indrans rues.
Sreenath Bhasi and Indrans in Home
He doesn’t mind doing the old dad characters he says, they are closer to his real age. Sometimes they are older than his real age, but it is no bother, Indrans adds. But being the lead of a film does brings a kind of pressure. He has been doing it on and off recently – play a lead once, play a small role next, taking all in his stride the way only Indrans can. You are not surprised to suddenly see him play a policeman in a big movie (like the serious cop in Malik or the comic one in Janamaithri). It is just as easy for him to play a full length character that makes you want to cry or laugh, the power seems totally in Indrans’ hands.
“When it is a skilled production and direction team and you have their support, you know the film is in safe hands and it will come out well. If not in theatre, it will do well at film festivals. But if a film does not reach anywhere, you feel a great despair (especially when you are lead). There is some fear in having one film you played a lead in going nowhere. There would have been a lot of expenses in making it. In that way, it is healthier to do smaller roles,” he says thoughtfully.
Home is releasing on Amazon Prime Video on August 19.