Gold Malayalam Movie

Feature Film | 2022 | U | Drama
Critics:
Gold is a piece of fluff full of Alphonse Puthren's indulgences. Many of these filmmaking quirks worked for his previous movies, but they are mere gimmicks here. There are many elements unrelated to the main story that make the film, deserving of being a short, at least one hour longer.
Dec 2, 2022 By Sreejith Mullappilly

Where To Watch:
Streaming:
   Amazon Prime

Alphonse Puthren returns to Malayalam cinema after seven years with Gold. Alphonse Puthren is a filmmaker who likes to revel in his eccentricities. He has an unusual way of telling a story that has worked wonders so far in his film career. Take the use of butterflies in his last film, Premam, for instance. The butterflies represent the transformation that his lead character, George, goes through in Premam. When it comes to Gold, there are many unnecessary nature shots, scenes with animals, a music band, and a group of dancers. While some of these sequences work well to an extent, such as the grasshopper as a symbol of a change in fortunes, others are all part of the fluff he is selling as a movie here.


Gold is about a man named Joshi (Prithviraj Sukumaran) who finds a Bolero parked in his front yard with lots of gold bars disguised as bluetooth speakers. An unsuspecting Joshi is infuriated by the presence of the vehicle in his front yard because it is blocking the way in for his newly delivered car. Later, Joshi realizes that the speakers in the vehicle are more precious than he first thought. Gold is about what Joshi does with the treasure he finds in his yard.


Gold has a good concept, an interesting beginning, and an out-of-the-ordinary climax, but the middle portion of the movie is hollow. Gold is somewhat similar to Puthren's previous film, Neram, in that it tracks the events in a man's life over a few days. But a large portion of the movie is uneventful and full of puerile jokes, unlike Neram.


While watching Gold, I remembered something Puthren's previous lead actor, Nivin Pauly, said about his script for Neram. Nivin said that he wondered whether some of the lines from Puthren for Neram would work in theaters because they seemed unfunny to him. The director's execution made up for whatever he lacked in the way of nuance in Neram. Here, too, there is not much in the way of plot, and there is little to no nuance. Now, what makes it worse is the fact that the lines in Gold are all duds, like wet crackers that do not go off.


For a mostly uneventful film, there are so many characters in Gold. Shammi Thilakan plays Unni, who owns the consignment that is inadvertently placed in Joshi's front yard. It is a bit annoying to watch Lalu Alex's Idea Shaji, who reminds you of Manoj K. Jayan's character from Neram. While Manoj K. Jayan had many thug-life meme-worthy moments in Neram, Lalu Alex's Idea Shaji only harms the viewing experience here. It is unintentional because what the director is aiming for here is only a comedy of manners. When it works, like in Neram, it brings about a good time in theaters. When an attempt like this falters, however, it impacts our viewing experience to a great extent.


Roshan Mathew, Sharafudheen, Soubin Shahir, Sabumon, Chemban Vinod Jose, Nayanthara, and many other actors make brief appearances in the movie. Puthren seems to have leveraged his reputation as Premam's director to bring all these actors together. How else could stars like Prithviraj Sukumaran and Nayanthara sign up for this piece of Malayalam fluff?

Sreejith Mullappilly

   

MOVIE REVIEWS