Vilakkumaram Malayalam Movie
If you have watched M Mohanan's Manikyakkallu(2011) starring Prithviraj, then Vilakkumaram is sure to give you some serious deja vu. We are all too familiar with the story of underprivileged children being cast out by the society before a big-hearted, upright teacher enters to turn things around. Vilakkumaram is only exceptional in the way it makes such an overused logline look worse.
It has to be something when a movie starring such talent as Bhavana, Manoj K Jayan, Nandhu and Suraj Venjaramoodu make a royal waste of its resources. Bhavana plays the leading lady with enough poise to reconfirm her acting skills. But, all the characters, including hers, have traits, dialogues and motivations so fake it is impossible to believe that we are watching something important. In a directing style that has a lot in common with the abhorrent TV serials of Kerala, Vijay Menon concocts a tasteless recipe of melodrama. It won't be a stretch to call Vilakkumaram a PSA since its aggressive endorsement of social messages is by virtue of forgetting the basics of modern film-making.
In Vilakkumaram, we see a clear case of budget issues. For starters, Bhavana's and Anjali Aneesh's respective characters seem to have been voiced by the same dubbing artist, making their one-on-ones absolutely hilarious for all the wrong reasons. The plethora of discontinuities exacerbates the artificiality of each scene to the point of befuddlement.
Vilakkumaram reinstates that the presence of experienced actors alone does not guarantee a watchable film. This film comes up short by a long mile with the absence of good storytellers and technicians.
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