Teens Malayalam Movie
Campus capers have started giving me the scare. It has nothing to with the youthful enthusiasm that at times threatens to flow beyond the brim or the supposedly exuberant music that sounds raucous to the ears. It is the routineness that has started getting to me, and 'Teens' is no exception.
It's an engineering college this time that forms the backdrop of the story being told. Sruthi Menon (Swapna Menon) is a fresh entrant who slowly develops a warm friendship with her room mate Bobby Alosius (Sonia Mann), despite their not hitting off too well, initially! When Bobby is attacked and left for dead, the suspects are more than a few.
This is a film that is all about women, and the men folk are a bit sparse. Of course there is Roy D'Silva (Divyadarshan), the head boy and his friend affectionately called the 'Member' (Sajith Raj), but for a change they serve as mere adornments in the film.
So it all starts off in typical campus caper style, with the new students arriving, and the hazing that follows. There are the tiffs between the juniors and seniors, the hostel life and pretty much everything except, as we guessed right, studies.
On second thoughts, perhaps campus life is all about merrymaking these days. And hence these young men and women have a field day (and night) out there, partying, singing, dancing and generally having a good time. But they do not seem to be left behind in their studies as well. We have these confirming remarks appearing time and again, that they are doing quite well on the study front as well.
Good. As does happen in almost all films as these, a murder or at least an attempt at murder is the twist in the tale, that would take it further beyond the half way mark. The cops arrive in no time, and disappear even faster, leaving the characters to find the answers for themselves.
The customary rule to transform the individual who appears most guiltless into the culprit is applied without fail. And you are left thinking as to why you hadn't thought of it. You console yourself with the answer that perhaps you weren't much interested to unknot the tangle in the first place.
The acting is all pretty fine, and here is this bunch of newcomers who have all done quite well, when it comes to their performances. But there is nothing much that they can do here, when the script lays across the table very little for them to work on.
All said and done, 'Teens' has some wonderful music by Viswajith, with 'Ee Mazhayithalil' which is quite soothing on the ears, standing out from the rest. It has been captured on camera remarkably well, thanks to some splendid cinematography by Gunasekhar.
'Teens' suffers on account of its premise that's a bit too familiar, and when the smoke finally clears off, you are not too excited by the revelations that lie around. There are the flashes of excitement and the energy spurts here and there, but they are simply not enough to win an applause.
