Akasmikam Malayalam Movie
'Aakasmikam' takes a family of three on a bumpy trip down guilt line, as each grapples with oneself to throw off the demons that cling to their backs. Ranjith (Siddique) is quite perturbed that his wife Anitha (Swetha Menon) is pregnant. Their only son Pranav (Ashwin) who is getting ready for the board exams has quite a lot on his mind, besides studies.
Renjith is a man who appears to be just another man who is leading with a midlife crisis, who is frantically trying to come to terms with a dwindling sex life and the inescapable sense of boredom that several years of matrimony has imposed on him. Deeper down however, he might be an extremely agitated person who cannot understand why his wife, who is fast approaching forty, has decided to keep their newly conceived child in her womb.
Anitha is equally confused, as she feels terribly confined within the congesting walls of their apartment on the ninth floor of one of the many looming structures that adorn the city. She has got used to a husband who has been quite verbal in expressing his displeasure towards her, and even doubts that her teenager son is distancing herself away from her. She hopes for her new child to be a girl, with whom she could spend some time voicing her thoughts that otherwise seem to be choking her from within.
Pranav is amused at his mother's pregnancy, but is too busy to pay heed since he has battles of his own to wage. Passing through a metamorphosis, the pangs of adolescence leave him all shaken up. His dictator of a dad isn't one he can look up to, and along with his best pal, he devises plans to woo his first crush ever.
The three characters that thus carry the story forward are loosely etched and very often stand facing each other in the narrative, at a loss to offer an explanation as to why things are. His excessive drinking or his losing himself in a stash of porn do not offer an identity to Ranjith. He is neither a sex maniac nor an alcohol addict, and we fail to see why he is angry with the world.
Perhaps one can better identify with Anitha, since her ordeal appears more rational than that of any other character in the film. She seems as affectionate as a mother could be, and yet Pranav isn't sure if he could confide in her. These perplexities continue throughout the film, with little answers to the many questions that arise.
The loose ends that hang all over add up to the muddle. There is the teacher (Praveena) for instance, who appears like a cloud with a silver lining, but she disappears all on a sudden never to appear again. That she seems like a mere contrivance to make Pranav and his lady love Prathibha meet seems appalling, especially since earlier in the film she is chalked out like a woman of mettle.
Siddique, Aswhin and Swetha Menon have done quite well, though it should be pointed out that Swetha looked quite unlike herself in at least a couple of scenes, where everything appears louder than ever. Perhaps the limpness in the narrative had added to the actress' woes.
The script that meanders this way and that touches its peak right at half time, and beyond that you realize that the way could only be down. And so it is, and the climax isn't very surprising either. Probably George Kithu's new endeavor does mean to be an earnest film tackling a very contemporary theme, but it never manages to offer you an insightful portrayal of the family dynamics that it attempts to analyse.
