Nayanthara's Connect is a Covid shiver giver best avoided

“Lady Superstar” Nayanthara is tonic to the eyes. Sadly in this Covid-centric horror flick, she has to look lost and distressed for most of the time. That too she does with such seeming lack of interest, that the distress becomes distressful for the audience. Whether it is because she plays a mother during quarantine whose teenage daughter becomes “possessed” by an evil spirit, or whether Nayanthara is worried about the film because her husband is the producer, we really don’t know. _Connect_ is one of those ironically titled films which simply fails to connect with the audience. It is well shot, no doubt. Cinematographer Manikantan Krishmachary has a keen eye for capturing the dark corners of a normal home and giving them a sinister design. But even there, the Malayalam film _Bhoothakaalam_  explored sinister spaces in a routine home with far more authority, skill and scariness. The scares are scarce in this spoon-feeding blind date of a film where strangers have to pretend they are amused surprised and involved when they are just bored. Connect seems to think putting a “lady superstar” at the core of the plot is sufficient bait for audiences to cling on to the prickly procedure. There are two other talented actors Sathyaraj and Anupam Kher trying hard to stay solemn and committed. But beyond the girl being possessed, the screenplay (Ashwin Saravanan, Kaavya Ramkumar) has little impetus for audiences’ involvement beyond the mandatory jumpscares and eerie music adding up to nothing more than edified nuisance value. Connect is riddled with inconsistencies. Who is the evil spirit to have entered Anna’s body? Why is the first priest brought in for the exorcism before Anupam’s character if not to buy time in a pencil-thin plot? No explanation, no rationale, zero involvement. While Sathyaraj acts all spooked out and bewildered, Nayanthara ’s concerns remain largely cosmetic.

Shot mostly on face-time, video calls, Zoom etc, with the characters exchanging eerie conversation as casually as one would speak about films they had seen during the lockdown, the film strikes a false note throughout, as its basic intentions are insincere. Why make a film about Covid when we are still so close to the trauma, and when it’s not even gone? Too close to the calamity to view it as entertainment director Ashwin Saravan’s take on the trauma is ill-timed, ill-conceived and, well, just ill. Not one of the emotions stuck with me as sincere, except when Maala Parvathi makes a brief cameo appearance as an overworked nurse combating Covid. Anupam Kher makes a late entry as a priest assigned to rid Anna of the alien presence in her body. The exorcism is conducted on Zoom. I doubt any self-respecting spirit would take orders on Zoom. But Anupam doing a Max Von Sydow from William Friedkin’s The Exorcist seems to be in a hurry for his next appointment. So are we. Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and Instagram