ShyamNTK

Happened to watch this film recently, and was quite impressed by it. Nice performances, great music and impressive narrative style. Definitely recommended.

This is an excellent example of an old literary work adapted to a contemporary film. The film is based on the 1943 Malayalam novelette 'Premalekhanam' by Vaikom Muhammed Basheer. The premise is shifted to Mumbai, and the castes of the protagonists have been changed from Hindu and Christian to Muslim and Hindu, which seem quite relevant at this era of 'Love Jihad' and 'Love Kurukhsetra' allegations. The film stays true to the original, and at the same time doesn't lose its freshness. As a person who has read the original work and the 1985 Malayalam film (a lousy attempt) based on the book, I still found it to be earnest and well made. The performances from the lead pair are pretty neat, and the technical side is all right. Another point to add is, thankfully we got platforms like Netflix, Zee5 and other such streming services where a film can be launched irrespective of its length. For instance this film is only 48 minutes, and in the absence of such platforms the director would have been forced to stretch the film to at least 90 minutes, to make it a feature film for a theatrical release. This happened with the 1985 Malayalam version, which had unnecessary sub plots and killed the charm of the original story. Overall it is an earnest remake, relevant to the current times. It would've been more appreciable if the director and his team acknowledged the original work at least during the end credits.

During the beginning credits, there was a background humming which said something like 'Oh no, oooh noooo...'. Guess it was a last warning to the viewers, in the hope that they would change their minds and stop watching the film right there.