‘Maniyarayile Ashokan’ film overview: Slips and falls by itself quirkiness

The curse of the quirky thought in cinema is that it doesn’t take a lot for it to slide into absurd territory, although there’s half an opportunity for it to develop into one thing particular too. In Maniyarayile Ashokan, author Vineeth Krishnan and director Shamzu Zayba had one such thought, which might have been developed into one thing distinctive — most likely in a brief movie — however squander it to ship a somewhat flat, run-of-the-mill, feel-good providing. Whether or not it manages the feel-good half is one other query.

On the centre of the movie, streaming now on Netflix, is Ashokan (Jacob Gregory), a village workplace clerk, who’s obsessive about the concept of getting married. Not like the state of affairs in actuality, the strain for the 30-something to get married doesn’t come from the household. The whole lot from peer strain, after seeing his associates and cousins getting married, to his personal goals gas this obsession.

As luck would have it, horoscope performs spoilsport, setting the stage for what might have been a movie that represents the plight of youth who develop into victims of societal strain to get married and the superstitions that spoil many a potential marriage. That is the purpose the place the script banks on its quirkiness, with Ashokan falling in love with and marrying a plantain tree, to recover from some type of curse in his horoscope.

There are certainly one or two factors the place the movie manages to make us empathise with the protagonist who’s quick dropping his sanity, however on the similar time, one can’t miss the truth that it does develop into absurd and unbelievable past some extent. In Kerala, the place there isn’t any dearth of jokes on planting a plantain tree, as an alternative of taking over some pointless endeavour, this script writes jokes about itself. One wonders whether or not the movie has some deeper message on natural farming, for certainly one of Ashokan’s pal’s relationships is framed across the trade of a coconut sapling.

Producer Dulquer Salman seems in a cameo that doesn’t add a lot to the movie, whereas there are simply too many songs to accommodate feminine stars who’ve agreed for a cameo. In truth, there are two pointless songs within the first ten minutes of the movie that actually don’t have anything to do with the plot. One is defined away as a again story of the village, whereas one other is the protagonist’s prolonged dream.

Maniyarayile Ashokan slips and falls by itself quirkiness, though some intelligent navigation might have saved it.

Maniyarayile Ashokan is streaming on Netflix