Haram

This was an incomprehensible dull and pointless movie with delusions of intellectual grandeur. There is absolutely nothing to recommend this film. Boring, vapid, unattractive, seriously. Give this one a miss.

So I was really drunk and my wife wanted to watch Haram (not to be confused with the sinister Arabic word Haraam. Haram, a Malayalam word means delight). We've had the DVD for a while now. I watched around 15 minutes of it. There was this awful heavy metal (?) or hard rock song playing at the beginning of the film with these young Malayali kids acting tough and angry on stage. And S.P.Sreekumar the comedian was chasing somebody on the road. Then I fell asleep. My wife woke me up around 90 minutes into the film and told me she was sleepy. So we turned off the movie.

The next day, we played the DVD again and this time I was not drunk and had to endure the rest of the film - thankfully, only 30 minutes remained of it. Fahad Fazil plays a frustrated communist who works at a call center and drives around in a Renault Duster :). Radhika Apte is his wife. Fahadh has a "discussion" about communism at a pub/nightclub where the band Thykoodam Bridge is playing a terrible song called "Theevandi". Fahadh and the other man gets into a fight and this somehow destroys his relationship with his wife. Contrived is too soft a word for the way the scenes were conceived.

S.P.Sreekumar's story is interwoven with the main plot. I am not sure what it had to do with the main plot. I asked my wife and she could not give me a convincing answer.

The heavy metal band at the beginning of the film keeps making an appearance throughout. Somewhat like that band in "Life in a Metro" (2007). I am not sure why this film was made or why it received funding. Or why a sincere and talented actor like Fahadh Fazil agreed to be part of it.

Haram is a socially relevant drama which released during the time when the people started to prefer feel good films over serious movies. And the feel good movie trend doesn't passed yet in the Malayalam industry.

Haram deals with the emotions of the impatiently living modern youth who're trying to conclude their lives very fast. This movie depicts the life of a corporate employee, who's possessed with his ideologies. Balu and Isha works together. Isha's broken relationship with a Kannadiga and a suicide attempt lead to a love affair between her and Balu. They ended up in marriage after so many years of relationship.

Balu really helped Isha to forget her bitter past and eventually she became a bold lady instead of an emotionally weak girl. But Isha's attitude towards Balu's political ideologies led their marriage into a bitter one. And the movie discussed about the emotions of Balu as well as Isha when they are separated.

The climax is evolving from the subplot of Ameena. Other than that, the subplot doesn't really helped the movie. Director Vinod Sukumaran used a light brown color theme in order to represent the human bondage seriously.

Vinod Sukumaran observed so many minute elements from the society and used it in his movie. There was a Syamaprasad touch in the visual treatment as the director Vinod Sukumaran was the editor of so many Syamaprasad movies. We can expect a number of good movies from this director.

End Note: You'll need some patience and a serious approach towards movies, in order to enjoy this movie.

People who can't enjoy serious films have underrated this well made film. It's about the complexities of the modern day relationships. How could people ends up relationships just like that? Very valid bothering and disturbing question.

Performance of all characters are really good. Radhika apte is just awesome, very mature performance. Fahad as usual very good. The only negative thing I want to share is that director tried to create the same mood of Shyam sir's movie. He could have try his own style.

It had the looks of a promising movie, but eventually did not make any point. Why waste the time of the viewers and that of such spectacular talents like Radhika Apte and Fahad Fazil with this?