Cinema

As much as this movie is so painfully long, boring and annoying, one undeniable thing is that Dhyan is one of the biggest fanboy of Nivin Pauly. NP never looked this pretty in a movie! But alas, Dineshan, the privileged, stupidly spoiled brat with no redeeming quality of his own, living his reckless life, never cease to be less annoying. No amount of Nivin charm could undo how exhausting Dineshan is.

Aghhhh, the number of times I watched this movie as a kid!

“Bheerukkal aayiram thavana marikkum, dheeranu maranam otta thavana mathram.”
“Thallaan varunnavane thallanam, kollaan varunnavane kollanam. Athee rajayude oru policy aa.”
“Ettaa…”

This was peak cinema for the 2013 me.

Rewatching it after a decade was… an experience. What once felt thrilling now feels strangely hollow and shallow. The editing is so chaotic that I genuinely got motion sickness in a few scenes. And the biggest shock of all: discovering that the film was edited by Mahesh Narayanan!

Many of the jokes haven’t aged well either, some are just tasteless and uncomfortable. In a way, it’s reassuring to see how much the industry has moved on from that style of comedy.

The women in the film barely have any agency and exist mostly for jokes or emotional reactions. The mother appears in barely two scenes, mostly to gasp and cry while the father shuns their eldest son. The heroine is the classic damsel in distress , extremely pretty, sees the hero and falls in love. Very convenient.

Then there’s the sister, the neighbour, the minister’s wife , all inserted purely for comic relief. And of course, the “highly inflammable” stepmother.

Funny how time changes perspective. What once felt like an unforgettable mass entertainer now feels like a reminder of how far our cinema has evolved.

What gives me hope, though, is that we as an audience have grown more mature. The things that once passed off as comedy or character writing now stand out much more clearly.

That said, the movie still works as pure brain-rot. And honestly, a lot of that charm comes from the undeniable charm of Mammootty and Prithviraj. Even when the film itself feels dated, their charisma still manages to carry large parts of it. The english jokes are still undeniably funny. Manoharan Mangalodhayam and Idivett Sugunan are icons.

In many ways, Madhura Raja(the character, not the second part movie lol) walked(ofc, in slow motion) so that Ranganna could run; the white clothes, the heavy jewellery, the swagger masking an emotionally abandoned inner child still yearning for love.

Cut this movie into 3 mins, and you'll get a good ad for why people should go to therapy.

Cringed so bad at the dialogues throughout! Imagine a script so pathetic that Zarin and Roshan, two charming and intellectually nuanced performers, are reduced to annoying caricatures.

I regret pulling my friends into watching it with me, telling them it's inspired by '96 and Meghamalhar, both of which I absolutely adore.

Astrid and Racheal Chu are essential parts of my sunday late-night self-care.

Home, sweet home!

How long is this movie, man! My boss would kick me out if she knew I was watching AK all afternoon. But guess what? I'm not even guilty :)

I saw this movie in the theatre when it first came out, and I didn’t enjoy it then. Why would I? Just two guys fighting, what’s there to like?

It took me a couple more years (and maybe some growing up) to finally get it. Yes, on the surface, it’s just two men clashing. But beneath that is something far more layered, two deeply vulnerable, family-loving men, twisted by ego, power, and social hierarchy.

As Ayyappan says, he's not fighting for his ego, he’s fighting against someone else's. Against a man bloated with entitlement, shielded by money, privilege, and upper-caste delusions of superiority.

I’ve watched this movie countless times since childhood but I had no clue how deeply tragic it really is. Not tragic in the dramatic sense, but in the quiet, inevitable way life unfolds — with its twists, turns, and the weight of life.

It hit really, really hard this time.

Kochthresia, I feel you. I see you. I can see my future in you, devoid of love from the much-expected sources. I hope life brings on a Reji and never takes away my kochumariya.

It's my grandma's 12th year of demise today. My cool-fun loving, wonderful grandma, a retired senior secondary math teacher. Not a day goes by that I don't miss her or her unconditional love. Sometimes I wonder how different I would have been if she were still there, and I never had this deep emotional void that followed after her passing, with the absence of a consistent go-to space for safety and forgiving love. If I were half the badass woman you were!

Kochthresia made me miss her more today.

That 1/2 star is purely for Kareena.
Got me tortured with two hours of non-stop cringe, dressed up as a "woke" film pushing a shallow gender stereotype reversal.
Killed my whole Saturday, and borrowing from a fellow review, I ask myself:
Kya & Kyun!

I had high hopes for this one.
But here we are:

Do you feel anything?
No.

The cinematography was good, but it thoroughly lacked a solid screenplay. MuRi, miss you man.

The rural cousin of Thurupp Gulan, a laughing riot fr.

Oru vekili pidicha padam.

This arc is better explored in Love Under Construction through Aju's character. That was a pleasant watch—this isn’t.

A lot of women, all for nothing.

It is a rarity that a movie makes you feel overwhelmed by the familiar chaos of dysfunctional families and their ephemeral sweetness. Narayaneente Moonamakkal gets it right. It eerily creeps up the bones, hitting the high notes in nostalgia, petrichor, undercurrents of unadressed turmoils, and the warmth of roots and belonging. Seeing a movie without an overbearing background score and fast cuts was refreshing, as each scene had its own space to breathe, and they could've honestly avoided the songs as they really broke the realistic consistency of the movie.

But somewhere, i wish i felt the deep pain i got when we saw Krishnan getting excluded from the group photo or the pain of the families leaving, a soon-to-be-demolished, once-their-home behind. i felt neither. It all felt normal, unsuffocatingly possible and sadly, natural. While the film achieves naturalism, it perhaps doesn’t push hard enough to make those moments of loss truly resonate. i feel the movie could have benefited from more emotional weight in key scenes.