It is a familiar scene – Malayalam television personality John Brittas inviting someone to his show and trying to make them cry, dimming the background, adding some sad music. You’d think with the release, Omar Lulu’s much-hyped film Oru Adaar Love would finally fade out, after months and months of talk, discussion, the sudden fame of some of the actors and the controversies. And especially after being such a badly scripted disaster of a movie. But Brittas has brought the movie back on the news with an interview of the director and one of the film’s female leads, Noorin Sheriff.
A visibly upset Omar claimed in the interview that the movie had to change to accommodate more scenes for the newly famous actors (meaning Priya Prakash Varrier and Roshan Abdul Rahood) and that they have all now spurned him. Priya, in response, reportedly put up an Instagram story: “If I begin speaking the truth, some people would be in trouble. Why be like them? I am remaining silent because karma (with stress) will speak no matter what. And that time is not far away.” The story has now disappeared as non-highlighted Insta stories do in a day. Priya's mother told TNM that the family has nothing to add to Omar's statements.
On the show, Brittas played an earlier interview he did with the director and two of the actors, Priya and Roshan, both of whom got a lot of unexpected attention following the viral wink in a song from the film. When Brittas asked Priya if she got three offers together – Salman Khan’s Hindi film, Vijay Sethupathi’s Tamil and Omar Lulu’s next – which would she choose, Priya chose Omar.
This clip was played in the new interview and as Omar tried to laugh it off, Brittas came up with a classic line - “Omar is trying to laugh but is crying inside.”
Omar in the interview went on to explain how the story had to change to include more scenes for the newly famous actors, and added that the climax itself had to change once the film released. He got visibly upset at Brittas’s prodding.
Not that the climax was the only part that needed change – the whole movie was not only scripted badly, it also managed to give out some really wrong messages – a boy kissing a girl is okay because she winked at him even as she appears to push him away in the scenes before, the boy slapping her at another point and uttering profanity when she breaks up with him is supposed to win some claps, the boy sending porn “accidentally” in the school group is meant to be taken as something silly and all those who question it are shown as the buy guys.
The less said about his earlier movies, the better.
Omar Lulu
But what has hurt him now is his young actors turning away from him (apparently not even on talking terms anymore), who might have found some greener pastures. Omar says Priya has unfollowed him on Instagram, maybe because he is a “small time director from Malayalam and she is now busy in Bollywood.”
“Suddenly, when these kids get something undeserved, they don’t understand it. There are a lot of people to advise them. When the shooting began, everyone was innocent – and that’s what I wanted. But suddenly some of them became famous and the others became nothing. There came a friction between the actors. Priya and Roshan became very conscious. These kids who never asked the story of the film before suddenly began giving their opinions on the story,” Omar said.
Noorin, who has apparently got lesser scenes in order to accommodate more of Priya’s in the changed script, said on the show that she refused to dance with Roshan recently because he seemed uncomfortable while acting with her. “He has said there is not much sync while working with me and I also heard he wouldn’t sit in interviews with me," she said.
(With input from Digital Native)