Bharya Onnnu Makkal Munnu Malayalam Movie
The stilted pace and bumpy writing muffles any admiration that one might feel towards Rajasenan's acting debut. Bharya Onnu Makkal Moonu makes you feel like leafing through the pages of an all too familiar paperback that you have been forced to thumb through a million times.
Chandramohan Thampi (Rajasenan) gets married to Lisamma (Sithara) despite the disapproval of his irate millionaire father (Shivaji Guruvayoor). Even after years have passed by, a reconciliation with his dad seems a distant dream for Chandran who makes ends meet with his job at the post office. Caught up in a financial crisis, Chandran leaves for the Middle East to make a fortune, as his wife and three kids wait back home for his return.
There is an idyllic fog that hangs all over the film right from the word go. People smile and suffer through injustice and disharmony, and plenty of sentiments conveniently crowd together to hide blunt truths. This is a sugar puddle of schmaltz where one gets to munch candy even as one drowns in it.
Indeed, here is another drama that dwells on strained family relationships. There are any number of films that have created a flutter on account of a storyline that has the dad-son pair at loggerheads with each other. Here the son takes it lying down, the epitome of peace that he is, and eventually has the final word.
It does help Chandran a lot that the world around is overflowing with integrity and goodwill. Barring a stringent dad who has objected to his wife's caste and a dysfunctional heart valve, the rest of the earth seems to be right there on his side. So much so, that when creditors come knocking on the post office door and make away with government money, his colleagues do not report it to the police. Instead they rally round him and chip in their little bits to help Chandran out of this (scriptural) mess!
It takes a drastic twist in the plot for the errant father to repent. As much as the sequence may sound poignant, it's embarrassingly reminiscent of a brilliantly executed finale that we have already watched in 'Bharatham'. And once these parallels are drawn, BOMM trips and falls, and appears plain dopey.
Pop comes up the big question. How does Rajasenan fare on the histrionometer? He isn't bad as an actor to be honest, except on a couple of badly written sequences that would have mortified any actor anyway. It remains to be seen if we would see him experimenting with diverse roles, though as of now, he fits the bill of the subdued, composed and peaceful son to the T.
At times BOMM feels forced and modest with all that sepia-tinged nostalgia going tremendously overboard. It does try truly hard to strike a chord here and there, but at the end of the show remains formulaic to the core.
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