Everything inNarayaneente Moonnaanmakkalis marked by the not-so-common quality of restraint. It is something that punctuates the conversations, as well as Appu Prabhakar’s camera movements and director Sharan Venugopal’s approach to the material. That restraint, which is maintained throughout, is remarkable for what is being said in the film, weighty, emotional issues that could easily slip into the ever-familiar loud treatment.
It is thus a film which also stays clear of the big event. Rather it leans on its well-etched characters to pull off memorable moments which reveal their innermost feelings. This also means that the film does not hit any high moments, but director Sharan Venugopal, who also wrote the film, appears to be just content to remain in this space to tease out its myriad hues.
The setting has much in common with Aalkkoottathil Thaniye(1984), written by M.T.Vasudevan Nair and directed by I.V.Sasi, with the three sons of Narayani coming together with their families after a long time at the ancestral house as she is on her deathbed. Early on, we get a sense that there is some bad blood between the eldest brother Vishwanathan (Alencier Lay Lopez) and Bhaskar (Suraj Venjaramood), the youngest, who is coming back to their home after decades. Sethu (Joju George), the middle one, considered a loser by the other two, appears to be the most sensible of the three.
Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal (Malayalam)
Director: Sharan Venugopal
Cast: Joju George, Suraj Venjaramood, Alencier Lay Lopez, Garggi Ananthan, Shelly Kishore
Runtime: 117 minutes
Storyline: As their mother lies on the deathbed, three brothers, who have been estranged for a long while, come together at the ancestral house, bringing back past memories and conflicts
But the film mostly views the family through the eyes of the younger generation — Athira (Garggi Ananthan) and her cousin Nikhil (Thomas Mathew) — who tries to make sense of simmering tensions within the family, while also struggling with their own boundary-less feelings and past traumas. The film also depends on them to build its mild conflict, which can elicit conflicting reactions from the audience depending on the way they look at it. But the screenwriter handles the situation somewhat adeptly by turning it into a gentle call for better understanding between humans, a call that especially goes out to the grown-ups in the film.
As more young filmmakers are doing these days, Sharan, even while critiquing, takes a non-judgmental view of the flawed characters, with an understanding of the social context in which they grew up. Vishwanathan, who still holds the pain of the casteist insults that a neighbour directed at his father, in another context reveals his regressive, communal face. But, in yet another scene, we get a more rounded sense of the man through his daughter’s words and from his act of passing a dish at the dinner table to a character he apparently despises. We then see someone who is attempting to break free from his ingrained bigotry but is not fully successful at it, especially when anger gets the better of him.
Garggi Ananthan along with Joju George succeeds in bringing a sense of depth to the characters through their performances, which holds the key in a not-so-dialogue-heavy film. Most of the other actors do bring to the table what was required of them.
In Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal, Sharan Venugopal hits the sweet spot between saying all that has to be said and keeping quite a bit unsaid. And, that makes all the difference.
Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal is currently running in theatres
Published – February 08, 2025 12:16 pm IST
