Is Geethu Mohandas parodying ultra-macho films, especially those starring Yash, with her upcoming movie Toxic, which is led by Yash? What else to make of the teaser, in which Yash’s character Raya, after a hot-and-heavy rendezvous with a woman, generates enough energy to trigger a blast that destroys his enemies?
Mohandas’s ambitious third feature, co-written by Yash, is a multi-language production that is aiming for a March 19 release. The film’s subtitle A Fairy Tale For Grown-Ups equally applies to Mohandas’s second movie, Moothon (2019).
Moothon is set in two places by the Arabian Sea – gorgeous Lakshadweep and grotty Mumbai. In the film, these geographically diverse islands are connected by trade routes, fishing and the timeless lore of the sea. The dialogue is in the Jeseri dialect of Malayalam spoken in Lakshadweep and Hindi.
Mulla (Sanjana Dipu) is bullied at school and treated with disdain by the fisherman Moosa (Dileesh Pothan). Mulla wants to locate the one known as “moothon”, the elder sibling Akbar, who left Lakshadweep for Mumbai after his affair with his neighbour’s brother Ameer (Roshan Mathew) was discovered. Mulla sets out to Mumbai to find Akbar, a journey as perilous as it is magical, but in a dark and twisted way.
Everyone changes on the mainland, Moosa warns Mulla. Mohandas’s screenplay has a mythical quality. The film feels like a cautionary tale being swapped by fishermen as they cast their nets into waters as bountiful as they are mysterious. Mulla has a dream that involves a mermaid trapped in a net – an omen for what Mulla will face in Mumbai after meeting the ruthless trafficker Bhai (Nivin Pauly), who is high on his own supply.
Moothon is available on ZEE5. The contrast between the frenetic action in Mumbai, where Mulla dodges Bhai’s henchmen, especially Salim (Shashank Arora), and Lakshadweep, where Akbar and Ameer fall in love, is stark. Mulla’s nightmarish experiences are set alongside Akbar’s dreamy moments with Ameer. The forbidden romance unfolds through throbbing glances, sign language – Ameer is mute – and sensuous touch.
While Mathew is lovely as Ameer, Nivin Pauly is fantastic as a character unmoored from his home, his heart broken, and lost in a haze of dope and self-loathing. Although the film’s interplay between beauty and brutality doesn’t always land elegantly, Pauly’s boldness in playing a taboo-busting anti-hero who challenges what we think we know about men is hugely commendable.
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