Thavalam Malayalam Movie

Even more disappointing than the film's loyalty to the prescribed plot, is its emotional conformity. This is too much of mock-intellectual matter that's deader than a roasted lobster. Sep 15, 2008 By Veeyen

'Thavalam' is a blender act gone all wrong. A hotchpotch of yesteryear flicks as 'Akashadootu' and 'Bhootakkannadi', the film is reduced to a wan offering with its lack of imagination and emotional depth.

Sivan (Suresh Gopi) is a cobbler, who has lost his wife (Sindhu Menon) during childbirth. Being a single parent isn't easy, Sivan realizes, as his daughter grows up pretty fast. The local ruffian (Sreejith Ravi)whom Sivan had brushed the wrong way, is out on parole and has his eyes all over the girl. And to add to his distress, Sivan is diagnosed with a terminal illness that's about to send his life crashing into a dead end.

Perhaps the intentions behind a film as this need to be applauded, and yet I could only conceive this film as an underachiever of sorts. There are so many things that it badly wants to attain, and there isn't a thing that it manages to.

The script is a downer on all counts, and it's honestly too much of a pain to sit through this ineffectual drama. There's this bit of the by-now-familiar paternal agony that's redone in 'Thavalam', but with neither the sensitivity that we saw in 'Palunku' nor the warmth in the recent 'Veruthe Oru Bharya'. Here it's palpably dull, nothng more, nothing less.

Technically, the film looks like a journey back to the 80's, not in too pleasant a way either. It looks bland throughout and seems to be engrossed in something else, and the production values appear alarmingly low-key. As much as it is unfocused and uninvolving, the film is numbingly apparent and intensely sentimental.

There almost seems like a lot of exaggeration on the social issue, and most of it serves no purpose either. It offers no inspiration and merely shuffles along to its conventional climax. And even at two hours, the film appears a bit too flabby and long. There's little in way of perspective, and less in way of execution.

The performances are inkeeping with the general ambiance of the film. Nothing to write about, I mean. Suresh Gopi looks real rigid, and has an expression of being bored beyond belief. It's obvious that he knows where this wagon with more than a few loose wheels is headed.

'Thavalam' is so terrifically clumsy, on so many levels of direction, presentation and intention. Even more disappointing than the film's loyalty to the prescribed plot, is its emotional conformity. This is too much of mock-intellectual matter that's deader than a roasted lobster.