Oruthee movie review: Navya Nair makes this world a better place

Language: Malayalam The most remarkable chase seen on screen this year does not involve muscular stars in swish cars. It features a woman with an unexceptional physique, a small boy, a thin-as-a-rake thief, a scooter, a mobike and a ferry. The wow factor in the episode is not speed or a shiny Aston Martin, it is the woman’s perseverance. By the time this scene comes around, Oruthee has already established her, Radhamani, as a lower-middle-class resident of Kochi who juggles a job, housework, children, an elderly mother-in-law, a long-distance marriage and socio-cultural activities on the strength of her hard work, happy relationships and a smile. In short, she’s just another unheralded woman quietly going about her business in a demanding world. Radhamani (played by Navya Nair) pursues the fellow who stole from her for a few hours that are crunched down to a breathless 13 minutes expertly edited by Lijo Paul in Oruthee. If her persistence seems improbable in a film that appears realistic in its entirety, remember that the idea for Oruthee came from an actual chain-snatching incident in 2018 in which a lady named Soumya dashed after thieves on her two-wheeler and did not give up till they were captured.

Oruthee follows in the footsteps of Maheshinte Prathikaaram, Vikruthi and other precious Malayalam films of the past decade that spotted cinematic potential in seemingly simple yet unusual, telling real-life occurrences. Sometimes, Soumyas emerge because instinct kicks in and gives them more stamina and courage than they knew they possessed. In Radhamani’s case, her resilience is a result of desperation due to straitened circumstances made worse by a series of recent setbacks. She has her back to the wall. Her anguish powers her. National Award winning director V.K. Prakash’s Oruthee is about the latent extraordinariness in ordinary folk, the havoc that wealthy, well-connected people casually cause while covering up their corruption, and what could happen when one of the ‘little people’ decides to fight back. We first meet Radhamani on a day that is like any other for her. A medical emergency leads to a financial emergency. When she is cheated by a commercial establishment, she gets embroiled in a David vs Goliath battle not of her making. Around this challenging experience, S. Suresh Babu builds a screenplay that speaks volumes about the convergence of capitalist interests, political machinations and human greed, and the price the masses pay when their mere existence clashes with the high-stakes gambles of the high and mighty. Radhamani struggles to meet a loved one’s hospital expenses of a few thousand rupees while in the background throughout the narrative, news channels cover the 2018 Karnataka elections following which rivals accused BJP of buying MLAs. When a news flash alleges that the price of a legislator is Rs 50 crore, Radhamani’s son (Adithyan) asks her how many zeroes there are in that figure. She doesn’t know or care because those distant crores mean nothing to her in comparison with the fraction of that amount she needs here and now for survival. The conversation encapsulates the differing priorities of the elite vs those they deem the hoi polloi.

Despite the hair-raising tension Radhamani experiences and her feisty reaction, Oruthee does not take a clichéd path by likening her to an all-conquering goddess-like mythical being. She is consistently shown to be a regular Jane battling a tough situation with incredible spirit. Oruthee avoids several other clichés and stereotypes especially in its portrayal of the harmony between Radhamani, her mother-in-law (Sreedevi Varma) and mother (K.P.A.C. Lalitha). The “Gulf wife”, as Meera Jasmine’s character described herself in last month’s _Makal_ , is recurrent in Malayalam cinema since she’s a fixture in Malayali society. Oruthee alludes to a crucial community trait while revealing that Radhamani’s husband Sreekumar (Saiju Kurup) has taken up work abroad unrelated to his skills despite having options back home, and hid the truth from his supportive wife. This adds another layer to the Radhamani-Sreekumar equation that is written so naturally, it feels like a real marriage with all its ups and downs. A man apologising to his woman partner for a transgression is not common in mainstream entertainment anywhere. Remember Ross’ “we were on a break” refrain in Friends? Oruthee writes Sreekumar as a more evolved man than Ross, unmindful of the discomfort this might cause among conservative male viewers. While Radhamani’s singledom dominates Oruthee, the film also throws light on other aspects of Malayali society and Kerala: superstition and religiosity co-existing with liberalism in the same family and within the same individual, the audacity of sexual predators towards single women, the everydayness of domestic violence as evidenced by a comment about a woman colleague, the state’s long-running, empowering Kudumbasree programme, and much else.

Oruthee makes itself utterly relatable by spotting plot twists in what one might call the small stuff – the key you cannot find when you’re in a rush, the paper misplaced in a cluttered house.

The film is not just keenly observant, its progressiveness is not tokenistic. For instance, though Vinayakan is superb as Sub-Inspector Antony in whom Radhamani finds an ally, this male character does not take over from the woman once he enters the picture. Unlike too many films in the past, Radhamani retains agency and primacy right until the last shot. Oruthee has nary a jarring note. Radhamani’s final action after a call to Antony makes for unnecessary melodrama in an otherwise mellow narrative, but I admit I’m quibbling here. More seriously, the song Run Baby Run marks too sharp a deviation from the film’s overall tone. The meticulousness of the casting is epitomised by the choice of Jayasankar as Radhamani’s quarry in that chase scene. He has little to do other than run, yet he makes the part notable by making his exasperation with this woman’s relentlessness almost amusing. Each supporting artiste gets space to shine, but Oruthee belongs to Navya Nair who is returning to films after a hiatus. Nair is outstanding here embodying a ‘little’ woman with astonishing resilience. DoP Jimshi Khalid spreads his wings during the chase, while contrasting Kochi’s swank housing complexes with Radhamani’s dingy home, and with dazzling frames of a Thiruvathira dance, but is carefully restrained while shooting Nair. He makes us aware of her prettiness without emphasising it to a distracting degree. In his and Nair’s hands, Radhamani becomes Everywoman who could be you or me. Through this one woman, Oruthee tells the story of all unsung, supposedly average women, and the fire fuelling the common people’s will to survive. With his unwavering vision, VKP has made an entertaining, thoughtful film befitting Navya Nair’s talent and stardom. She’s back, people. Rating: * * * * Oruthee is streaming on ManoramaMAX. It can also be viewed with an Amazon Prime Video premium subscription.

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

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