Thieves Jonappan and Ithakk are underwater, tying a stolen object to a plant. In that moment, Jonappan decides Ithakk will be his newborn daughter’s godfather – in Malayalam, 'thottappan'.
Thottappan, the movie, begins and ends in water. Posters and the title had given enough clues about it being the story of a man and his goddaughter. Vinayakan as Ithakk the thottappan, lifts the baby girl up in the air, and watches her grow up all in the span of a song. She comes under his care when Jonappan – Dileesh Pothan – disappears and Mary, the child’s mother, goes silent. You know Ithakk would love to do this for his friend. He had told Jonappan he is very lucky to have got a baby girl, very lucky.
The movie is not entirely about it though. It is as much about the island village it is set in as it is about the people there. It is loosely based on a short story by Francis Noronha, but many changes were made to it, director Shanavas Bavukutty has said earlier. Suresh Rajan’s camera takes us into the dark waters that Shanavas seems to especially love shooting in, and the long thin stretch of land between the waters of which you get a bird’s eye view.
But even as it appreciably goes into the rawness of a village set in the 1990s, it lacks a certain depth that you need to connect with the characters.
The characters are introduced, but they don’t stay. Ithakk disappears after the first song – and it is a beautiful song, courtesy Leela L Girikuttan – when a teenager Sara (Priyamvada) raises her head from the same water in which her dad and thottapan had long ago taken a dip. You see her as the independent young woman thottappan has raised her to be, tough in her manners, with no time for the silly musings girls her age would have. Thottappan comes back and you learn he has been in prison for three months. He is still thieving around.
The village characters – the blind Muslim man running a sweet shop, the little boy next-door who keeps Sara company, the tea shop owner who has a crush on Sara – make it a familiar setting for you. Especially the characters of an old man and an old woman, who have been in love through the decades but living in their different marriages and exchanging words of love through the thief Ithakk. There is also the curious character of a priest played by Manoj K Jayan who seems to have a really lenient view about Ithakk's stealing. PS Rafeeq’s screenplay makes it an adorable bunch of characters, only they are not as impactful on screen as they are on paper.
It is to this life that a new character is introduced – Roshan Mathews’s Ismail. A stranger, also a thief, comes into the life of Ithakk and Sara. It is remarkable how Roshan, so far seen in college going fashionable getups in other films, easily gels into the rustic village life, wearing a lungi and speaking the Kochi dialect. To Vinayakan, used to playing such characters, it comes easily, although at times the lines seem bland and maybe they were intentionally so.
Newcomer Priyamvada is very convincing as Sara, but in emotional scenes, she is rather expressionless and shock does not seem to register on her face.
You can watch Thottappan to enjoy the comforts of a village life – you can’t call it innocence – and the skills of a carefully chosen crew. The pace, too, is just right.
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.