Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum movie review: Fahadh Faasil’s phenomenal comic timing is up against a rambling plot

Cast: Fahadh Faasil, Viji Venkatesh, Anjana Jayaprakash, Dhwani Rajesh, Vineeth, Althaf Salim, Avyukth Menon, Abhiram Radhakrishnan, Indrans, Mukesh, Innocent, Chhaya Kadam, Mohan Agashe, Shanthi Krishna, Cameos: Ahaana Krishna, Naslen and Shruti Ramachandran       Director: Akhil Sathyan   Language: Malayalam    Sometimes, a script is so rich and unconventional, that it’s a challenge to pinpoint the genre it occupies and pin down the basic storyline. Sometimes though, the reason why a film is hard to describe is because the writing never settles down. Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum (Pachu and the Magic Lamp) wanders endlessly, and is redeemed largely by Fahadh Faasil’s phenomenal comic timing, supplemented in the initial portions by Althaf Salim. If “all over the place” were a genre, that’s the slot into which this film would fit. “Fahadh to the rescue” could be another. Written, edited and directed by Akhil Sathyan, Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum opens in Mumbai where Prashanth a.k.a. Pachu, a Malayali man in his mid-30s, runs an Ayurveda centre. Pachu skates through life with the minimum possible effort. Since his business is faring well (and no doubt since his family in Kerala is well off), he has the choice not to strain himself too much, except in his quest for a wife. He has already dated a woman, broken up with her, evolved as a consequence and gone through a few dozen pennu kaanal routines (‘seeing’ potential brides, a practice that those familiar with arranged marriages know well). On a trip to Kerala, Pachu makes a commitment to a wealthy contact, Riyas (Vineeth), that he will escort the man’s mother (Viji Venkatesh) on a train back to Mumbai. This leads to a twist that forces Pachu to rise above his innate inertia. Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum then switches from what seemed like a comedy drama to a potpourri of elements. Humour remains in Pachu’s dialogues and conduct, but now the mix includes suspense, crime, philosophising, romance, an old lady’s resolve and a teenager called Nidhi (Dhwani Rajesh) who wants to study. Perhaps Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum is meant to be an exploration of the what-ifs of human existence. What if Pachu had not agreed to meet a girl in Kerala? What if he had not missed a flight? What if he had not agreed to accompany Ummachi? What if he had not woken up on that train? There’s promise in the idea, but in a bid to examine these forks in the road, Akhil piles too much on to his script – too many characters, too many tangents, too many details that, in hindsight, add nothing to Pachu’s journey or the plot in its entirety. Take the child (Avyukth Menon) – a returning Sabarimala pilgrim – that Pachu and Ummachi encounter on the train from Kerala. Avyukth is a natural, but looking back, it would not have mattered a jot if the boy had been erased from the screenplay or edited out after shooting. It might be argued that his funniness was his contribution to the proceedings. This line would be valid for, say, Indrans’ tiny role because he is cast against type and that in itself throws up a surprise. Or the late Innocent as the man who insists on Pachu going for a pennu kaanal despite his tight schedule – the veteran actor is a hoot in that brief appearance, but he also serves to take the story forward. The episode featuring him has a domino effect on Pachu’s world. Likewise, Ahaana Krishna and Shruti Ramachandran’s cameos serve a purpose because the very decision to cast familiar faces in their parts is amusing, besides the fact that the section involving Ahaana is crucial. The boy on the train, however, has near-zero effect on the plotline. Akhil, is clearly trying to achieve a slice-of-life feel that Malayalam cinema excels at, but with a distinctive treatment and positivity associated with his father, the great Sathyan Anthikad. He is bang on with his sense of fun, does well with the characterisation of Pachu and Riyas, and builds a slow burn of attraction between two personable individuals. However, he weighs down what works with so much lard that sizeable stretches of the narrative become tedious. Even the title is more pretentious than profound. In his feature debut, Akhil confuses naturalism with aimless meanderings and superfluities. For instance, Pachu’s mother surfacing in the finale, that too played by Shanthi Krishna, is not only unnecessary, that scene in which she gazes emotionally at Nidhi is inexplicable and odd. The film also gets several people to give the audience irrelevant information about themselves. Case in point: Hamsadhwani played by Anjana Jayaprakash proves to be significant, but we are also informed of her absent housemate’s name and profession for no good cause, which might have been okay if she were the only one, but she is not. As character after character does this through the film and so many are introduced in a way that suggests they will matter (the doctor at Pachu’s centre, the boy on a cycle in the introductory montage) only to be glossed over or discarded later, the narrative feels increasingly over-crowded despite its evident attempt at a relaxed pace. In contrast, Nidhi’s background, which is vital, is recounted with lack of clarity through a flashback overlaid with a song, and her family is sketchily written. The unthinking elongation begins at the beginning, with a Hindi song played over the credits. If the goal was to represent Mumbai’s multiculturalism within a Malayalam film, then a multiplicity of languages, at the very least a blend of English, Marathi and Hindi, would have been more accurate. The lyrics are not even in Mumbaiyya Hindi, but even if they were, the song would have been redundant. First, Mumbai ultimately proves to be marginal in Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum, so why was so much time wasted on exploring the city in that preface? Second, we are pointedly shown Pachu’s colleague (Althaf Salim) newly arrived from Kerala and struggling with this tongue. When it comes to language, Malayalam cinema has a split personality. On the one hand, Hindi and English dialogues and songs are mindlessly slapped on to many mainstream films. On the other hand, beauties like Ariyippu and Thankam have turned the well-thought-out inclusion of various languages in the same script into an art form. Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum course corrects on this front after messing up at the start. The film is consistent and far smarter in its use of Sharan Velayudhan’s cinematography to convey the differing physical and class-determined topographies of the three states it visits. Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum as a whole is an uneven experience, buoyant in the first half, solid with its humour and Pachu’s coming of age, wavering pretty much everywhere else. The women who enable Pachu’s evolution – Ummachi, Hamsadhwani and Nidhi – are played by actors with impressive personalities who are not given the benefit of the attentive writing that the male protagonist gets, despite their considerable screen time. Hamsadhwani is the only female character who has some degree of interiority and an arc, and Anjana Jayaprakash does well enough in the role to prove that she has a capacity for more than this script offers her. Althaf Salim is brilliant at evoking laughs, but disappears after a while. Vineeth nimbly navigates a sudden shift in Riyas’ seeming one-dimensionality at an unexpected moment. The entire enterprise rests on Fahadh though. When the narrative descends towards grimness, Pachu lightens the mood, but never by trivialising his circumstances, and Fahadh exploits this nuance to the hilt, transitioning smoothly and at lightning speed between tones. Since Akhil Sathyan’s strength is the writing of comedy, that is when the actor shines brightest in this film. Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum lifts off the ground whenever it taps Fahadh the comedian, only to nosedive repeatedly under the weight of a surfeit of sub-plots, characters and an information overload that is mistaken for depth. Rating: 2.5 (out of 5 stars)  This review was first published in early May 2023 when Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum was released in theatres. The film is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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.