It is difficult to pin Veyil to a particular genre of movie. The film is well-made, has some lovely performances, but doesn’t keep you all that engaged. You are interested in the characters and you’d like to know what happens to them, but you lose focus not knowing where the story is going. It is an enjoyable two and a half hours, but would have been more enjoyable at two. Nevertheless, you get to see the continuing growth of Shane Nigam as a performer, who can seem rigidly unmoving at one moment and exploding with emotion at another. Sarath Menon, the debut director and writer, clearly knew what he was doing. It is a shame the film ran into unnecessary controversy in the middle of its making for there are some noticeable talents emerging from it.
Veyil has quite a few newcomers, each walking into the screen like an experienced performer. The movie begins with Shane Nigam, waking from a dream about his childhood. He is Siddarth – Sidhu – in the film, coming home, from somewhere far away, in a bus. At home, he glances through the family album which drops more photos from the past into his lap. On cue, you are taken straight to his school days with a nice folksy song in the background. Sidhu is your typical slacker, not interested in studies, failing exams – there is not a single shot of him inside a class. It is all bike riding and cricket and mostly hanging around with a friend, Merin (Merin Jose Pottackal).
But he has time for a girl in school, Sruthi (Sona Olickal). Almost the entire first half of the film is built around the relationship that slowly develops between Sidhu and Sruthi, in the company of Merin and his girlfriend Nimmy. It is all very raw, the café meetings and phone messages, with a couple of soothing songs thrown in (Pradeep Kumar’s music). All the new actors are sweet to watch, especially Merin gives an adorable performance.
In between all the romance, you also see Sidhu’s home life – a busy working mother, rough with her sons but making sure they have what they need and spending time in front of the TV in the evenings.
Sreerekhaa, the actor playing the mother, presents a different picture, from the doting mother Malayalam cinema has been used to in earlier years. But then writers have been creating, in recent years, varied hues of mother characters that don’t just form the background of the hero’s life or play the all-forgiving parent. While it was refreshing to see one more atypical mother, living independently, making her own decisions, the performance fell short when there were lengthy lines and emotions at play.
Watch: Trailer of Veyil
Family bonds, cleverly forming only a background in the earlier part of the film, emerge into the foreground later. Saed Imran is wonderful as the petite elder brother with health problems, quietly siding with the truant brother and acting kindly towards a neighbourhood boy with a disability. He is marvellous, when he breaks down at one point of the film, stunning the other characters and the audience into shocked silence.
The film, which had seemed a safe coming-of-age drama in its earlier half, appears to change a few gears and heads straight into the troubled world of goons and crime. Many times, it is vague, how one chapter connects to another. One moment you see Sidhu, holed up in his house, miserable, and another moment, he is mixed up with a gang. You lose the thread unless you closely pay attention, make some mental calculations and figure everything out in seconds. For everything happens quickly. Out of nowhere, Shine Tom Chacko, a proven performer, appears in the middle of the story, and the menacing buildup warns you something bad is going to happen.
Once again Shine calmly plays another worrisome character with ease. Soon after him, appears James Elia, another smooth performer, as a vile politician. New characters pop up and with each of them, multiple cigarettes get lit on screen. If you like making metaphors you can amuse yourself by comparing the smoke to the one forming inside your head. But to be fair, the confusions are minor, and the editing is actually a neat piece of stitching (by Praveen Prabhakar). It is only a few minor dents in the script that you can easily cover with a touch of paint.
By the end of the movie, you know you have seen a well-made movie, but you can’t be quite sure what it was all about.
Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the series/film. TNM Editorial is independent of any business relationship the organisation may have with producers or any other members of its cast or crew.