Pakal Nakshatrangal

I watched this movie five years back that too in some television channel . This movie when released in 2008 didn't fair well critically or commercially .It was Anoop Menon's first script . It generated renewed interest among movie afficionados when Anoop Menon scripted movies gained much following in 2010's . In YouTube where its available for viewing, it has more than a lakh views . The comment section is full of praise for the movie ; some even lauding it as one of the best movies ever made in Malayalam! Its not the best movie made in Malayalam or one of the best. Its an interesting watch for the themes it discusses . For his first script , Anoop Menon managed to rope in Mohanlal and Suresh Gopi , two of Malayalam's superstars ! Anoop Menon - A lifelong fan of mohanlal had also written himself into movie as Mohanlal's son . It is through him the story develops ..

The story is told through the perspective of different people who interacted with the central character of the movie -famous director Siddharthan -played by Mohanlal. Siddharthan died some years back and now his creation - an intellectual club called Daffodils- is being turned into luxury apartments . The movie begins with this news and late Siddharthan and his life again comes into the limelight . Anoop Plays Adi Siddharthan. He is a world famous Indian writer nominated for the booker prize.. who worshipped and was intrigued by his mostly absent father . He decides to write a book about his father and the various women in his life .Siddharthan was an inveterate womaniser- cementing the notion the general public have about movie directors- similar to Mammootty's character in Kariyilakattu pole . Adi follows his fathers footsteps when it comes to relationships with women. You can see similar themes in many of Menon's movies - Open minded men and women having guiltless extra marital affairs .. He reminiscences on how he came to writing the book . Some years ago when he was in Kerala he met one of his fathers old cronies who gave a shocking revelation that Siddharthan was murdered. This notion is further fueled by the police officer who investigated the case (played by maniyan pilla raju). Adi decides to investigate further and goes on to meet his fathers friends as well as former lovers. Some of the elements of the plot like intellectual gathering of daffodils , certain dialogues etc reminds one of director Ranjith's scripts . Infact some scenes are similar to that of Paleri Manickyam by Ranjith.( which released in 2009) where mammootty plays both son(illegitimate) and father and investigates an old crime purportedly committed by his father. The film discusses too many themes , open relationships , friendship, suicide, mental health, love etc .. but does not impact you in anyway. Mohanlal still manages to impress us inspite of the tepidness in the plot and overly theatrical dialogues he is forced to mouth .Suresh Gopi plays a ghost hunter of all things - A role which demands little of him- it could have been done by any character actor. The movie is interesting in parts , the themes discussed are intelligent at least in concept if not in execution.. I recommend to watch it alone and when you have lot of spare time ..

When the movie was released two years back I was not able to see it. I had heard that it showed a novel change in the Malayalam film industry with some fine acting and good story. But it was a failure in the box office. Later I came to know that Mohanlal had won multiple awards for his performance for this movie. And when this movie was aired the other day on television I sat down to watch it finally.

Watching this movie, I realized this too was just an attempt to make a good movie where the whole crew failed to produce anything worth watching apart from the good acting by Mohanlal and a fine story line. The main reason for this movie to fail was a weak script. This movie as a mystery never keeps the viewer guessing what is to happen next. Moreover, there are so many characters in this movie that the viewer gets easily confused who is who and how he is going to affect the story line; especially those characters that appear as the Siddarthan's (character played by Mohanal) friends. Most of these characters seems one sided that linger around most of the movie without any impact or by providing silly comments that does not move the movie forward. They seem to be there just for being in a film and their acting seemed plain boring. Anoop Menon who had handled the writing department appears to have heightened his character with unwanted intellectual lines that he speaks.

The director seems to be nowhere, with mediocrity shown in each shot and the story never moves forward and it hangs around the same point till the end with a fine climax which could have been better.

The narrative pattern made me remember about the TV Chandran film 'Kadhavasheshan', with even the plot being similar to the movie.

This movie never evokes the viewer to engage into the movie due to several reasons: Characters seemed to pop out from nowhere, speak something interesting blandly and then disappear suddenly.

I didn't understand the purpose of many characters and scenes especially the scene in the beginning in which Nishanth Sagar speaks of his new drama. His character itself is nowhere to be found later. Then there was Lakshmi Gopalasway with no specific purpose but just to listen to Anoop Menon's avoidable and uninteresting dialogues. There are some more scenes in which I didn't I understand the purpose of it in the movie.

The movie is a definite one time watch just because of a really good story, a good performance from Mohanlal, Kalpana, the actor who played the character Uthaman and Anoop Menon in parts but due to the faulty screenplay and ridiculous dialogues we don't get to like the hang of the movie.

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