Padavettu is Nivin Pauly's strongest political statement to date

Nivin Pauly never fails to surprise me. Even if the screenplay finally lets him down, as it has in Padavettu now streaming on Netflix, Nivin never disappoints. Looking burly and bristling with an unspoken rage, Nivin plays Ravi, a wastrel in rural Kerala where an uprising is waiting to happen.

Nobody knows when. It takes time. In real  life and in this slow-burn political thriller where  the stakes are not just high but also easy to define, though difficult to deal with.

Nivin’s transformation from a good-for-nothing to a political animal is quite astounding. He moves through the plot like a untamed animal in a thick forest. You never know which way it will go. The initial scenes showing Nivin Pauly’s Ravi bickering with his plucky aunt Pushpa (Remya Suresh) are so vitally vibrant, they are like precursors to the storm to come when  villagers rise in protest against local politicians who want to take away their land in exchange of some money.

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It is familiar ground which Pauly and his director Liju Krishna tread with confident strides. The  battle of the peasantry for the right to their land is nothing new. It has been fought in Indian cinema from the time of Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen. Paduvettu shows how far that battle between the haves and the have-nots has come. And yet, as the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr famously said, the more things change the more they remain the same.

Paduvettu breaks through the status quo with a momentum that  suggests  a movement, although there isn’t enough fuel  in the rhetorics that  spill out of Ravi in the climax. His words are rabblerousing, passionate and redolent of a revolutionary spirit.

Lamentably, the narrative derails from its original purpose, to address issues such as the  right to franchise and a woman’s right to remarry after divorce. There is a very silent Amitabh-Jaya Sholay kind of romance between Ravi and the divorcee Shyma (Aditi Balan) which gets derailed by politics.

The  entire  political manoeuvring  of welfare schemes for the  underprivileged is well handled  by the  writer-director Liju Krishna when Ravi and his  aunt’s  dilapidated  home is  renovated  by the  local politicians. This  act of kindness  doesn’t come without its  price. Ravi is branded the  ‘purchasable  layabout.He takes the  insults  lying down even if it  means  losing the respect  of the woman he  loves.

What I missed  was Ravi’s cue to  renovate  his  ethics and  priorities.  It happens  without warning. Punctuations  are seriously amiss in this tale of  selfrealization set  against  the backdrop if a  village where  their seems  to  be  no sense  of purpose.

Powerful performances , not only from Nivin Pauly who expresses rage without  shrillness and   whose silences always  speak  louder than  his words, but also  from  Shammi Thilakan and Shine Tom Chacko,  furnish the febrile   fable of Kane  and Abel with  strong sense of  purpose.  Also watch out for the  explosive  actor who plays Manoj(Manoj Omen), a firebrand  who  at first opposes Ravi and then  becomes part  of  the  movement.

Padavettu is a refreshing radical take on the farmer’s right to his  land. But it lacks the grace  and rhythm  of Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen or Shyam Benegal’s Ankur. It could have gone so much further. But  the writer-director keeps the revolutionary spirit  live not  for posterity but ….well… someone has  to do the dirty job.

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  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.