NOT WORTH A THOUGHT

After a series of earth-shattering flops, which could have killed the career of an artist of a lesser stature, Mohanlal has a lot at stake in the movie 'Innathe Chintavishayam'.
The actor, who has bagged the state award for the best actor just a couple of weeks ago, teams up with Meera Jasmine, the best actress and Sathyan Anthikkad, one of the most bankable directors in Malayalam cinema in this flick to ensure that the history of duds doesn't repeat.
The best in the business when join hands, one naturally expects a mouth-watering fare. But what the audience gets to see is one of the most boring films in recent times.
Sathyan, the master story teller who captivated Malayali cine lovers with his own brand of earthy characters, humour and simplicity seems to have lost his art all of a sudden.
Though the theme he selected for the movie is very topical as the title suggests (Thought for the times, when roughly translated), the characters remain lifeless and unnatural. What the audience get is: A very inane, hackneyed sermon on how to keep marriages work from the famous marriage counsellor...sorry, Mohanlal.
The story is about three women, unhappy in marriage, living single and on the verge of divorce. They have their own reasons to be unhappy and frustrated in marriage. All three friends have husbands who fail to understand them, or rather, who fail to live up to their expectations. One of them is a skirt-chaser, another one too possessive and suspicious of his beautiful wife, and the third one likes to keep his educated wife in the confines of the kitchen to cook biriyani and ghee-rice.
At the end of the tether, the indignant threesome part ways with their husbands and start on their own. Treesa, the character played by Sukanya, becomes a driving instructor, Pramila (played by Mohini) starts a coffee shop and Rehana (Muthumani) starts practising law. It is among these high-strung dignified women ( Dignity of labour!) that Sathyan unleashes Gopakumar aka GK aka Mohanlal.
He befriends the three of them, impresses them so much with his chivalry and politically correct masculinity that when Kamala (Meera Jasmine) enters the scene as a textile consultant to GK, they turn red with jealousy and even fantasise him singing a duet with her! God! What has happened to Sathyan, the writer-director known for his common sense and knowledge about the common man?
Anyway, GK's marriage counselling starts in right earnest. To make it more effective and speedy, he even does a fancy dress and 'kidnap' Pramila's child. He is helped in his endeavour by the Providence also by effecting two accidents and an arrest in Dubai. Earthly help come from Immanuel (Innocent) and Kamala. Finally, all the erring husbands are brought back to their senses. They realise how invaluable their families are.
There is another shocker in the script when Kamala's past is unveiled. It is so absurd and pathetic that one wonders whether Sathyan himself has penned the script.
Meera Jasmine and Mohanlal sleep-walk through the film most of the time. And, when GK opens his mouth, it is to deliver inane wisdom and poor psychology on love, sharing, caring and about children who bear the brunt of familial discords, just like a high school teacher. At the end, when Mohanlal makes the 'valedictory speech' and reveals the raison d'etre for his concern about troubled marital lives, one cannot help yawning. Some were heard booing. Poor fellows, they sat through the whole movie!
Sukanya, Mohini and Muthumani have nothing to perform in the wafer-thin script. They remind us of the run of the mill soap characters.
The village humour that set the director apart is conspicuous in the film by its absence. Comedy provided by Innocent and Mamukkoya is painful, to say the least.
As for the duet and kissing by Mohanlal and Meera, a Malayalam proverb comes to mind: To watch a calf frolicking is pure joy, but if a bullock jumps about...
Stating the obvious does not go by the name art. Rather, it is in leaving certain things unsaid, leaving room for interpretation that art makes its presence felt. Without a proper script and plan, Sathyan has made a travesty of a sensitive subject and made it look silly. Simplicity of narration, which was his forte, errs into over simplification, ie, lack of meaningfulness and purpose in the movie.
Anyway, with this bad film, he gives us a chance to realise how good his movies were_like Thalayana Manthram, Mazhavil Kavadi, TP Balagopalan MA, Nadodikkattu and even Rasathanthram.