Hridhayam – movie review

If the title wasn’t a straight forward giveaway on the theme, the posters and trailer more than gave the whole storyline, that it is a triangular love story. It was promoted as a coming of age story of a guy from college till his middle age which again gave lot of nostalgic scenes to expect and none of the expectations were proved wrong. In fact the storyline is so done and dusted, most of the scenes write by themselves. There is no twist or turn or overtly negative villain or even melodramatically bad situations. Of course there are some sad sequences, loss of loved one but even those scenes can be preempted. But still every single review of this movie is so positive and people going ga-ga over who should play whose role when it gets remade in other languages. For such a simple and oft used storyline, possibly the most commonly used theme for star kid launch movies, the movie is possibly the biggest hit of 2022 from Malayalam movie industry!! There are people who are so smitten with the movie that there are fiery arguments as to whether the movie should even be remade, for fear of inadequate casting. I saw the movie for I had exhausted my quota of new movies online and for first one hour it was like watching a rehash of all college scenes across any movie/web series across any Indian language ever made. In fact, by the time the interval came, it was so exhausting that I thought the movie had ran to finish!! The second half takes off almost like a new movie, where in the hero has wrapped up his studies and is onto job mode as a photographer. If his college love was shown as a deep rooted romance, there is hardly any semblance of the loss of it or presence. He casually meets up the heroine on a wedding event while on his photographic assignment  and eventually she becomes his better half. They have a kid and while attending the wedding of the ex-lover of the hero, along with the kid, the response of the hero to his ex-flame, frames the end of the movie. But, despite having no opinion or possibly very less expectation on an already known storyline, told in the most linear manner possible, I found the movie to leave an impact for a while after it got over!! May be it is the songs, for their pleasant melody, may be its mohanlal’s son (hero) with his nonchalant and calm performance, never over the top and always restrained, maybe it’s the girl next door looks of Darshana (who owns the first half) and pakka Malayali representation of Kalyani priyadarshan (who comes only in second half and is more of an extended cameo, yet its her picture on all the posters. Nepotism and star power rules everywhere) or may be with the entire first half strongly rooted in Chennai, there is a sense of relatability which adds to everything. Whatever was the magic mix, it works big time on screen. I strongly believe that having talent apart, the fate of any actor lies with the camera angles. If the camera loves their face and depicts a pulling screen presence, their career is made. Ditto goes for the lead pairing in this movie. Apart from the trio, rest of the cast are all quite normal looking while the chemistry between the three of them are “Adipoli”. Kalyani is effortless in her role and the way she carries the baby in the climax scene is clue enough as to her comfort level in playing this role with real conviction. At its heart (pun intended) Hridhayam movie has got its casting right and the good background scores and self assured cast really tugs your heart string with an otherwise normal storyline.