Now it’s a trend in the industry to make films on plots of friendship .Even a lot of other language films like ‘Happy Days’ raked in big profits from Kerala while dealing with such plots. Following this propensity for youthfulness in style and narratives, filmmaker V K Prakash has accomplished another movie made on the tender alliance of friendship and love.
As a director who has been constantly dumped down by weaker scripts, this new movie ‘Positive’ also is not a big exception. But this time due credit should be given to V K P (as he is popularly called in ad circles), for coming up with a clean film sans any coarseness. Only if the screenplay were a bit well knitted, the film would have been even better.
The highlights of ‘Positive’ is not only the high spirit of camaraderie but also the absorbing planting of a investigative thriller module amidst the life of a group of teens, who continues with their musical band even after their studies. The action mainly gyrates around Raju (Suraj) a software engineer and his three bosom pals essayed onscreen by Vani, Manikuttan and Remesh Pisharody. Raju who plays the key board and is into vocals is supported in his every endevours by progressive boisterous Winnie (Vani Kishore), Udayan-the drummer of the band with long tresses and a ‘designer beard’ (Manikuttan) and Cherry (Ramesh Pisharody). Winnie’s mother tries to marry her off to a Police Officer named Aniyan, but his off hand remarks on their friendship group spoils the event.
On a way back from Bangalore, Raju accidentally encounters Jyothi (Ayilya G Nair) in a bus, which leads to a transitory romance. On the day when Raju plans to introduce Jyothy to his friends of the troupe and his family, she disappears from the hostel without leaving a trace about her whereabouts. Raju is totally heartbroken following the incident.
The film which starts off blissfully cheeky with lively proceedings in the first half, songs and humor, gets more and more serious as it goes along, and suddenly changes over to an investigative thriller. This constant, changes of direction to the story, at every given opportunity spoils much of this slickly made sequences and its stylish visuals. The story has all the vital ingredients of a commercial potboiler like romance, family sentiments, suspense and action. But the scripts by S N Swamy fails to split the proverbial beans with élan, leaving us desperate to figure how the filmmaker will reach that loopy ending, after the completely unrelated first few reels. Despite its strong technical content and brilliant performances, V K Prakash finds its hard to carry the juggling act successfully with this many layered story.
All the key artists in the movie have come up with brilliant performances. But Jayasuriya as a police officer seems to be a miscast in the film, with his shallow physical appearances. It is not easy being an emerging star in Malayalam cinema because most characters you play has a benchmark set by a veteran actor. So when Jayasuriya plays a warm, non indulgent police officer, we are immediately reminded of the veteran superstar’s powerful police roles. Suraj, Manikuttan and Remesh Pishadory seem perfect and natural in their roles. Saikumar is in his usual self while Jagathy who often appears from nowhere is wasted in the movie.
The female leads, Ayilya and Vani with good screen presence, do their parts surprisingly convincingly, though their characters could have been etched out more sharply.
Technically, the film offers some of the best visuals seen in Malayalam cinema in recent times. Cinematographer R Ganesh captures the spirit of the youth in every frame. Mahesh Narayanan also deserves applause for the zest full cuts that announces the landing of another talented technician to Mollywood. M Bava’s artwork is top class while Alex Paul’s music does not disappoint, with a couple of songs lingering on in the viewer’s memory. The EFX team has worked well to create wonders, especially in the chroma keyed song, which sadly props up against the narrative flow.
Taking up the relationships in the urbane contexts, ‘Positive’ may not be a must-watch but it’s a film that you might fish out when you have nothing more important to do.
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