Android Kunjappan - movie review

One good thing about this lockdown is, I am getting to watch lot of other language movies, which I wouldn’t have even tried, even with time available. After a spate of Telegu movies, it was time for Malayalam. My sister and wife were getting too bored and was screening across the OTT platform for any different movies. The name must’ve caught their attention and armed with the support of subtitles, they ventured to see this movie. While I wasn’t too keen on the slow paced nature of the movie, was watching on and off while passing by and soon, with nothing else to do, started watching and didn’t even realize when I got hooked into it. The movie goes at a snails pace is as realistic as it gets. It traces the daily routine of an widowed old man in a village, left alone by his only son. I guess the story must’ve begun with the son sending a robot as courier to take care of his dad and the old man being reluctant and sad having been left alone by his son, must’ve resisted the robot. Slowly the robot becomes part of his life to the extent that, he begins to treat it like his own kid. He even names the robot and hence the movie title. The scenes where he asks the robot to cover itself with a veshti are sure to bring a smile. He takes the robot to a nearby temple and the scene it creates there are genuinely warm and funny. He even gets a horoscope created for the robot based on its manufacturing date as birthdate. It prepares his daily food and after initial issues, the robot prepares his food with utmost precision as guided by him. It becomes an inseparable part of his life, even helping the old man in finding his ex-lover details. The scenes where the old man tries to have facebook chat with his ex-flame without revealing about himself are nothing short of stalking yet adorable, considering his yearning for love and company. The twist comes in the form of a manufacturing defect on the batch of robot’s created making them risky for human usage. The son comes back with his Japanese spouse to take back the robot. He even promises his dad to stay with him permanently to take care of him, along with his wife. But his presence causes hinderances in the daily routine of the old man, who had long since adopted to his new normal of a daily life with the robot. What happens in the end – did the robot go cranky like its batch mates, was the old man reunited with his flame, did the son return back to his workplace in Russia or does he stay back with his dad are all answered in a way that may not be satisfactory for all. But overall the movie was so poignant and leaves us with a feeling that is hard to define as happy or sad. I never bothered to check for the names of the actors, for it was so naturally enacted that, felt like candid camera on some guys real life incidents. Moral of the story is for everyone to figure out and when it comes to being practical vs being emotional, where the line is drawn is not an easy question to answer. All of us loved the movie and we’ve infact started calling junior as Android Kunjappan. He relishes the name 😊