Veyil Malayalam Movie

Feature Film | 2022 | Drama | 2h 37min
Critics:
Audience:
Sarath Menon's Veyil is a slow-burner of a film with a brilliant central performance and an excellent climax. Not everything works in Veyil, but it is a joy to watch its main actors and their chemistry on screen.
Feb 27, 2022 By Sreejith Mullappilly

Where To Watch:
Streaming:
   Amazon Prime

Sarath Menon's Veyil is quite an intense family drama and coming-of-age film. It revolves around Shane Nigam's character, Sidharth. The film starts with Nigam as a grown-up man but soon shows the school days of young Sidhu. He loves a girl in school, Sona Olickal's Sruthy, but does not dare to open himself up to her. Sidhu is shy and a tad introverted, which explains why he feels uncomfortable around girls.


A large part of the first half of Veyil tries to establish Nigam's character as well as his relationships with his friend, brother and lover. He has a solid relationship with his friend Merin played by Merin Jose Pottackal. Merin and Sidhu hang around on bikes, spend time with their girlfriends, and smoke together. A lot of screen time is dedicated to showing Sidhu's relationships with people outside of his family.


Then, in the second half, the film focuses more on Sidhu's relationship with his mother and brother. Sidhu's brother, Saed Imran's Karthik, has health issues and is a studious person. Karthik spends a lot of time studying, so he clears the medical entrance exam. On the other hand, Sidhu focuses more on his life outside of the family. In the second half, there is a story element that explains why Sidhu behaves the way he does, especially with his family. The absence of a father seems to have played a part in his frequent tantrums.


Veyil has no plot, and it progresses without any element to connect one moment to the other for a large part. It has a slightly loose structure where characters come and go at will. Shine Tom Chacko and James Elia's politician characters appear out of nowhere in the second half, and Sarath spends a long time building up some tension between these characters. Chacko's Baby handles all the bad things that his politician brother does, and we sense some tension between them.


But the film is not at all about those politician characters or their hired gang members. It is just that the family drama occurs at the same time as the political part of the story. So there is not enough focus even as most individual scenes work well.


There is one lovely scene where Sidhu and Karthik's mother, Sreerekha's Radha, breaks down as she explains what makes his son the person he is. There is another powerful scene where Karthik breaks down in front of Sidhu, explaining how different his brother's life would have been without him. Up to that point of the film, these scenes work well individually, but we soon sense a lack of focus here. Veyil is not a plot-based drama, so the lack of focus slows the film down considerably in the second half.


But soon everything starts to fall in place, and it all builds up to an excellent climax with a surprisingly good emotional depth. We assume that we know where the film is going, but Sarath takes a storytelling detour and surprises us with a clever climax. Sarath takes no easy way to end the film while keeping an uncompromised approach to storytelling throughout.


The strength of Veyil is its performers, though. Sreerekha's cries have the power to affect us emotionally, making her character work even as she stays one dimensional. Saed Imran's eyes and demeanor show that his character is a young man with a good level of maturity. Watch how his character cares for a youngster with special needs. It is so gentle and lovely. But the headliner here is Shane Nigam as one of the brothers. Every time Shane comes on screen, you think about Ranbir Kapoor. This actor has the range to handle a likeable persona and a bad guy shade in the same film. It is a terrific performance that holds this somewhat unfocused film together.


Sreejith Mullappilly

   

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