Dear Friend movie review: Intriguing blend of buddy flick, thriller and psychological profile

Language: Malayalam One friend among the leads in Dear Friend is Muslim. One is a Tamil speaker in an otherwise all-Malayali circle. Their religious and ethnic identities do not define them though, just as their differing backgrounds are not an over-riding element in their relationships with the others. This approach to the portrayal of friendships is a great way to normalise social inter-mingling and inter-community romances on screen. In an India where divisions run deep, the depiction of these friends’ unbiased acceptance of each other is also a gentle reminder that despite the disturbing real-life overall scenario in the country, there remain enough oases where amity is routine. In that sense, Dear Friend merges smoothly with the landscape of the new Malayalam New Wave , characterised by films in which there is as much cultural insight to be gained from the sidelights and asides in the script as there is from the main plot. Vineeth Kumar ’s sophomore enterprise as a director is an ensemble film about Jannath (played by Darshana Rajendran ), Vinod ( Tovino Thomas ), Shyam ( Arjun Radhakrishnan ), Sajith ( Basil Joseph ), Arjun (Arjun Lal, who is also one of Dear Friend’s writers) and Amudha (Sanchana Natarajan). Jannath is a psychologist. The men are flatmates and business partners in an app development project. When a member of this seemingly tightly knit band disappears, Dear Friend metamorphoses from being a buddy flick – or rather, from giving the appearance of being a regular buddy flick – to becoming an indefinable thriller.

Is the missing friend in danger? Who was this person they thought they knew? How easily did they trust? Without getting overly heavy, Dear Friend ends up being a comment on the nature of modern-day socialising when youngsters are adjusting to unfamiliar big cities far from home and ‘close’ friends may be drawn not just, as they traditionally would be, from well-entrenched networks of extended family, townsfolk/villagers known to everyone, classmates and work associates, but also from random strangers such as that charming chap you happened to bump into at a nightclub and similar situations. This has its pluses and minuses. The film does not pass judgement. Even as it quietly packs in its socio-cultural observations, tension hangs thick over the second half of Dear Friend. When the curtain rises, the gang are doing standard young-people things – partying, making fools of themselves, having fun at the expense of a birthday boy among them, getting into a public brawl and being an amusing kind of silly. The narrative ambles along, letting us into their world, revealing bits and pieces about their circumstances, their goals and how they relate to each other. Just as it starts feeling like a run-of-the-mill friends’ saga though, the mood shifts. The suspense in Dear Friend is unconventional. The writing is credited to Sharfu, Suhas and Arjun Lal. Sharfu and Suhas co-wrote Virus with Muhsin Parari, and Puzhu with Harshad. The director, writers and editor Deepu Joseph inject an everydayness into the construction of their narrative, even after doubts, fears and hurt come into play. They, along with music director Justin Varghese and DoP Shyju Khalid, ensure that there are no drum rolls prefacing each new revelation, instead adopting a sort of FYI-this-too-happened tone. The reasoning behind this very deliberate choice becomes clear when the climax comes around, since it does not possess an oh-my-god-I-must-rewatch-the-entire-film-to-see-if-I-missed-anything quality. So yes, there is suspense in Dear Friend, and it is, in its own way, a thriller, but it might not be apt to describe it as a suspense thriller because that label conveys the impression of a faster pace accompanied by shock and awe. Dear Friend is matter of fact yet intriguing, and the finale is nicely open-ended. I think I would have liked knowing more about how the twist in the story affected the group’s faith in humanity, but as things stand, I enjoyed this film a heck of a lot. The casting in Dear Friend is crucial to its success.

Tovino’s willingness to play Vinod rather than confining himself to solo-hero ventures, despite being a marquee name , is in keeping with his evident interest in avoiding a tried-and-tested path. This admirable confidence in what he brings to the table led him to Uyare and Virus , in both of which he was not the central character. In Dear Friend, it is hard to imagine anyone else as skilfully pulling off Vinod’s chameleonesque nature embedded in an endearing persona. Dear Friend comes to us after the blockbuster Hridayam (2022) and the pandemic’s pioneering experiment, C U Soon (2020), both with Darshana as the female protagonist. Jannath is an Everywoman yet an extremely special woman, brave in her choices but not Wonder Woman, and Darshana treads a tricky mix of youthful mischievousness, self-assurance, tenderness, grit and anxiety with a seeming effortlessness that belies the character’s complexity. An incredibly sweet Basil, the two Arjuns and Sanchana are well-thought-out choices, although the film might have been better served if the writing had spent more time on the attractive Sanchana’s Amudha. After his impressive turn as the Collector being held hostage in Kamal KM’s brilliant Pada , it is good to see the talented Arjun Radhakrishnan in another significant part in a high-profile film. Jaffer Idukki and Rekha Harris are flawless in supporting roles. Dear Friend’s ending is risky for the filmmaker because it is not designed to excite viewers in a typical-mystery-movie manner, instead leaving us with food for thought and a realisation that sometimes people do dramatic things for not-so-dramatic reasons beyond the obvious. A flash of a memory in a therapy session is left unexplained, a visit to a crummy Mumbai chawl showcases the loneliness and isolation that exists in an urban crowd, and close to the conclusion, we catch a glimpse of two actors styled to resemble two of the primary cast. What is one to make of all this? No ready answers are offered for what motivates an individual in the film to go down a certain road, whether there is a personality disorder in the reckoning here or something else. I have my own theories. Without giving away any spoilers, let me just say: some sportspersons enjoy the game for the end result; for some though, the thrill is in the game itself. Here’s more: perhaps Dear Friend is an origin story? Make of that what you will. Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)  Dear Friend was released in theatres in June 2022. It is now streaming on Netflix.

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram