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When the three brothers meet after a long time expecting the death of their ailing mother, old scars, bittersweet nostalgia, and new problems surface in a poignant tale that invokes laughter and tears.
A still from the film.
Narayaneente MoonnaanmakkalU/A
4.5/5
Starring: Joju George, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Alencier Ley Lopez, Thomas Mathew, Garggi AnanthanDirector: Sharan Venugopal
“Going home again” is a cinema trope that continues to string hearts despite being around for a while. It never becomes dated as everyone–even the ones staying in their hometown–longs to go back since home is never a place. It is a collection of memories of a place and time with people that’s lost. Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal (Narayani’s Three Sons) explores the popular adage: “You can never go home again.” It isn’t there anymore because even the one, who is missing it, is not the same individual who once lived there. Sethu (Joju George), the middle son of Narayani, learns it the hard way when he tries to bring back his estranged brothers to their hometown, when their mother is on her deathbed, counting her days. The family reunion brings to the fore the old scars, nostalgic memories, and new problems, making up for an immense experience of laughter, tears, and profound thoughts.
Viswan (Alencier Ley Lopez) is the eldest and the crudest of the trio. He doesn’t hold back his tongue, which spews vulgarity. He has a bone to pick with the youngest brother, Bhaskar (Suraj Venjaramoodu), who left home to marry his Muslim lover. Now settled in the UK, he returns with his wife, son Nikhil (Thomas Mathew), and a toddler. Bhaskar wears his liberal and progressive identity on his sleeve. When he sees Viswan trying to do wrong by a family friend by hiking the price of a real estate property, Bhaskar intervenes to establish his righteousness. Sethu is ill-treated by his brother for being the good-for-nothing, stay-at-home son, who runs a small chicken farm and a grocery shop. He remains a bachelor and comes across as a loser. Yet, the brilliance of Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal is how all the initial notions of characters fall, revealing the true people behind the facades.
The small-scale film’s runtime is short of two hours, but the heights it ascends in such a short span are himalayan. Despite the short runtime, the film takes its time to introduce each character. While the elders go about creating tension in the dysfunctional family, Nikhil and Viswan’s daughter Athira (Garggi Ananthan) start developing an intense bond that crosses the societal boundaries. Sharan Venugopal handles this relationship with a poignant approach that’s bold and beautiful at the same time. There’s an incredible moment in the film when Sethu tells his niece and nephew that relationships are ‘ephemeral’ and that it is important to have boundaries. The subtlety here is breathtaking. Sethu seems to know what is brimming between the cousins, and there couldn’t have been a better way to handle such a delicate situation. The irony of it is that everyone calls Sethu a fool!
Yet, Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal is not a film which fishes for profound moments. It is candid with capturing some moments of this dysfunctional family, and anything thought-provoking becomes incidental. In essence, it is a character study of these family members and their interpersonal relationships, where there are no heroes or villains. These are people making good and bad decisions and living with it. What makes the film delicious is the minute details and moments of their lives. It puts a smile on your face, when you learn Sethu counts the number of people who come to the local festival every year. We get a scene where Narayani’s sister is crying hearing the false news about the latter’s death and cries in the auto-rickshaw only to pause and ask her daughter, “Have you switched off the gas?” Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal is about these simple moments that betrays complex human condition. As the film comes to a close, as Bhaskar’s car takes a U-turn, you realise it is true one can never go home again, but it will never deter us from trying.
- Location :
Kochi [Cochin], India, India
