Language: Malayalam
American entertainment – films and shows that the Indian masses are most exposed to among global entertainment options – tend to be filled with adults who were scarred by their parents, and it is commonplace to hear such characters utter this lament: “Oh my god, I have become my Mum/Dad.” If that is one extreme of the relationship spectrum, Indian popular culture is the other, brimming over with saintly mothers and fathers adored by their dutiful daughters and sons. Director Dileesh Pothan’s Joji is a departure from the Indian trend but steers clear of American clichés.
Imagine being faced with the prospective death of a parent who you dread, resent or at best, dislike. That’s the situation in which this film’s eponymous hero (Fahadh Faasil) finds himself along with the motley band inhabiting their sprawling home.
Joji has a close, informal relationship with his sister-in-law Bincy (Unnimaya Prasad), who is married to his diffident elder brother Jaison (Joji Mundakayam). The eldest sibling Jomon (Baburaj) is a tempestuous alcoholic who lives in the house with his teenaged son Popy (Alister Alex) from his ex-wife who despises him. When the wealthy patriarch Kuttappan P.K. Panachel (P.N. Sunny) has a stroke, the ‘children’ must balance their true feelings towards their father with the façade they are required to maintain before society.
Syam Pushkaran’s screenplay does not bother to write a back story for old Kuttappan, but we get to know enough about him from the present. He is a go-getter, a physically intimidating, physically active man who remains committed to a tough exercise routine despite his advanced years, distrusts his offspring with good reason and is violent with at least one of them.
When Kuttappan falls grievously ill, the reactions in his household range from relief in certain quarters that he will not find out about their financial misdemeanours to fear that he will be furious about how his business affairs were conducted in his absence and anxiety about whether he has written a will.
Although none of the characters is above reproach, each one passes judgement against the others at some point in the narrative, but the team of the film itself does not– they simply tell it like it is. Even when members of the Panachel family do horrible things or turn a blind eye to someone else doing so, they are not painted as stereotypical villains. In fact, they are perfectly normal/ordinary-looking people who commit crimes and misdeeds with an air of everydayness – it is this that makes their actions both shocking and amusing.
Joji– which is inspired by Macbeth – paints an intriguing portrait of the antonym to mourning in this house of intrigue. Like some of the best of Malayalam cinema’s New New Wave, it is a watchful film in which a chain of events unfolds at a natural pace, presenting a wealth of insights into Malayali society along the way. The succession battle in the Panachel home, the gossip by those claiming to support them, the local church’s influence in their lives, the tense relationship between the parish priest (Basil Joseph) and this moneyed family all add up to a delightful black comedy that perhaps only Dileesh Pothan and writer Syam Pushkaran could have made.
This is Dileesh’s third directorial venture – also his third with Fahadh – coming on top of the financial and critical success of Maheshinte Prathikaaram and Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum. Syam Pushkaran’s enviable filmography includes screenplays for Maheshinte Prathikaaram, Mayaanadhi and Kumbalangi Nights. All three have been at the forefront of this New New Wave that is currently making waves across India.
Joji lives up to the reputation they have built for themselves with its detailing, acute observation powers and kookie sense of humour, all backed by stupendous acting.
The story is unequivocally centred around Fahadh’s character, and he plays this deceptively calm layabout simmering with rage with the sort of unassuming brilliance that is now his trademark. Joji’s indolence, for one, is established not just through the overtness of Jomon’s taunts or the realisation that Kuttappan used to refer to his youngest son as “second piece”, but by that early scene in which the young man switches on a video classroom session, immediately flops down on a bed on his stomach and uses his feet to lift the sheet lying at the foot of that bed to cover his lower half in a bid to avoid the exertion of reaching out for it with his hands.
The acting and the writing of Joji are so nuanced that it often seems like nothing much is going on here despite the world of turmoil on display.
The fantastic supporting cast plays the characters around Joji with the understatedness that is this film’s hallmark. The difference between the others and the protagonist is that they are people of questionable morals, but as we gradually discover, he has none at all. They have their Lakshman Rekhas, he draws no lines. Trust the man who wrote Kumbalangi Nights to write a tale of immorality rivalling amorality, and make it startling, tongue-in-cheek, whimsical and comical in equal measure.
Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)
(A longer version of this review will be up shortly)
Joji is streaming on Amazon Prime Video
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