Kamal, Siddhique and Anwar Rasheed, three directors who have proved their mettle in Mollywood came up ravishing praise on Malgudi Days categorising the movie as a well made film for the family audience.
These captions on the posters of the film had little impact on me before venturing into the cinema halls to watch Malgudi Days. It would be an advertising gimmick, thats what I felt. Also heard some not so good feedback from some trusted sources. So quite naturally the expectations was kept at the bare minimum of zero level.
Though the film could have been lot better and some notable flaws in the screenplay and dialogues was evident, the zero level expectation did turn out to be a blessing in disguise as I didn’t find Malgudi Days a total washout.
Perhaps for the first time in Malayalam, we have three directors wielding the megaphone. Visakh, Vivek and Vinod who are brothers direct for the first time. An amateurish feel of making was felt at some places and over usage of melodrama in the screenplay pulled down the flow of film at some stages. One thing is too much postmortem for a movie coming from a bunch of newcomers to the industry is not a good trend though I have done that in the past for many of my earlier reviews.
The story is quite simple and its just the treatment that makes it a bit complex adding some revolutionary angle in certain characters. Two school kids gets accidentally locked up inside Malgudy Residential School located in Idukki when the school dispersed for a ten day vacation. How they escape and who becomes their saviour is what the film dwell upon.
There was a real incident in Nagaland some years back where a ten year old girl was locked up inside her classroom when the school closed for a one month vacation. This little girl lost her life since the investigation angle didn’t turn up on the school premises.
Makers of Malgudi Days have taken inspiration from that story but here unlike the real incident, the cinematic liberty comes to the fore in the form of a rescuer who helps little Adheena and Jewel to get out of the mess they are in.
The character of Anoop Menon amd his flashback story is just added as a catalyst to bring in some connection to the main plot which looks pretty thin. The first half literally show the flash back part while the story start focusing on the integral part of the plot only in the second half.
Even with the flaws and the parallel story not able to make a better impact and connection with the main story, the climax for me was touchy.
Anoop Menon played his part quite well though the film mainly focused on the two kids more. Credits to him for selecting such a script that had a minimal role to play for him. But the selection of the script if we measure the quality, well he has made a weak choice here. Bhama don’t have a prominent part to do. Quite surprised that she didn’t use her voice on the dubbing side.
The two kids were okay but some of the dialogues were quite heavy for their ages. Noby on the comic department was a let down. Saiju Kurup, T.P Madhavan, Irshad, Priyanka and a few more actors are present to support.
Cinematography reminded me of Life of Josooty. Yes, here in Malgudy days too there are lot of aerial shots captured through helicam. About the camera work, it could have been better. Though the scenic beauty and nature was present to support, camera department could not fully exploit that. Graphics were not done properly.
Overall, Malgudi Days is not a great film and doesn’t make a big impression once you leave cinema halls. But that touching climax and helpless expression conveyed through the character’s eyes leaves you in a shock.
Hoping that the directorial triumvirate of Visakh, Vivek and Vinod will learn through experience on writing a better screenplay that can make a more lasting impact and executing it with more perfection in their next project.