Sarvam maya - movie review

This movie was making rounds on SM ever since it was released and had been a big hit. Despite its limited budget, Malluwood has been steadily increasing its foothold in the Indian movie industry. While Telugu movies have made a big splash with their overseas BO clout and also making the word Pan India as a regular terminology across every movie industry in the country, it is actually Malayalam movies who have literally owned the OTT space across most genres. Be it thriller, of which they've literal monopoly or soft romcom movies, Malayalam movies are a league of their own. With Sarvam Maya they enter into the ghost comedy genre, which has been the only source of hit genre for tamil films in recent past.

The other aspect in which Malluwood dominates is their ability to churn top talents - nepotism or otherwise. They've always been the go-to region for heroines who ruled the roost across Indian like the East India company, having been introduced in Kerala, entering into Tamil, moving onto Telugu and from there into Bollywood. With this movie, they may've possibly identified one another cute bubby heroine in the likes of Mamitha Baiju and several others. In fact, across almost every review i read about this movie, they've solely credited the heroine for carrying the movie forward. Nivin Pauly finally has a hit and his luck, his lady lead steals his thunder. But the characterization is also such that, the story is heroine centric to most extent. Unlike ghost horror movies this movie doesn't rely on jump scare tactics but comedy to take the story forward. There is no melodrama as well and no sad sob story behind the heroines death and why she roams around as ghost. The scenes involving Nivin and his cousin, who does poojas and rituals as main business, while Nivin, actually an aspiring musician, accompanying his cousin for pocket money, makes interesting watch. Just like how the presence of the ghost character is felt in the end as a cool breeze, the entire story also breezes to finish. The heroine is quite cute without being obvious and even her character name "delulu" has a funny connect to it. 

The storylines seems to be heavily inspired by "Just like heaven" featuring Reese Witherspoon (the ghost who doesn't realize she is a ghost) and Mark Ruffalo. Such is the pleasant nature of the movie that you can definitely rewatch it. Jio Hotstar bags yet another winner in Sarvam Maya.