Movie Review: Drishyam 2 (Malayalam)
It wasn't a question of if, but when. And it was only a matter of time before the ghosts from the past come knocking on their door and the veneer of normalcy gets upended by new revelations after all these years. But Georgekutty, ever astute, vigilant and the cinema-obsessed man he is, is ten steps ahead. He has had all the time to put his plan in motion, after all. Talk about Machiavellian!
Crafting a sequel to an edge-of-the-seat thriller is no easy task. How does one top the cinematic brilliance and screenwriting miracle of Drishyam really? But Jeethu Joseph's Drishyam 2 tides over the hurdle by broadening its moral ambit on crime and punishment. "Nobody can define the right or wrong in this," Georgekutty mused at the end of the first film, adding "It's the nature of humans to be selfish."
So it's perhaps fitting that the very act of self-preservation that made him pull all stops to protect his family and cover up the accidental killing of a top cop's perverted teenage son with a watertight alibi becomes his Achilles' heel through another man who has also committed an inadvertent crime in the heat of the moment and spent six years languishing in prison, a man who has now turned over a new leaf and wants only to be with his family, no matter how hard that may be.
Joseph, like before, plays his cards close to the chest and lets the audience simmer in anticipation as he slow-cooks the meaty plot and lets the story unravel. It's an exceptional slow-burner remarkable for its tonal and emotional consistency, for the film smoothly picks up right from where it left off, while simultaneously reversing an end that had been done so superbly and repurposing the framework of a mystery to expand the genre's possibilities, even as it revels in its leisurely-unfolding small town dynamics (like how the tea shop becomes fodder for gossip), before paving the way for clever meta twists that blur the optics completely.
Just as the fear and continuing trauma that the family feels is always palpable (the moment when they abruptly halt the conversation upon hearing the sound of a police siren says it all), even the seemingly disparate threads and finer details from the first film (Rani's obsession with English medium schools in the city, for one) that feel disjointed at first fit into this deftly-arranged jigsaw puzzle.
Sensitively reflecting on themes of domestic and sexual violence, and the unfair ostracism faced by those convicted, Drishyam 2 neither glorifies or justifies the crime; rather it mirrors the heavy guilt and the toll it's taken on him and his family (that Georgekutty published a book explaining the events that took place can be interpreted as a catharsis, a move to offload the guilt), the ensuing gulf opening between Georgekutty and Rani — whose peace of mind shattered to pieces that night six years ago — that would also prove to be his undoing. Georgekutty emerges a hero at the end, but at what cost? For the family, the house ends up becoming both their sanctuary and prison, a fact symbolised by recurring shots framed against grilled windows.
Drishyam 2 isn't completely without its warts. Anil Johnson's background score is needlessly over-demonstrative, the calculated manoeuvres unleashed by Georgekutty builds to an abrupt and rushed ending that doesn't have the same organic seamlessness that made its predecessor a riveting and satisfying watch, and the attempt to construct a complex cat-and-mouse game and pull the rug from under your feet is as evident as it's convenient and contrived. But it's nonetheless gripping and it's to Joseph's credit that it all comes together so well. If Drishyam was all heart, Drishyam 2 is more cerebral.
Crafting a sequel to an edge-of-the-seat thriller is no easy task. How does one top the cinematic brilliance and screenwriting miracle of Drishyam really? But Jeethu Joseph's Drishyam 2 tides over the hurdle by broadening its moral ambit on crime and punishment. "Nobody can define the right or wrong in this," Georgekutty mused at the end of the first film, adding "It's the nature of humans to be selfish."
So it's perhaps fitting that the very act of self-preservation that made him pull all stops to protect his family and cover up the accidental killing of a top cop's perverted teenage son with a watertight alibi becomes his Achilles' heel through another man who has also committed an inadvertent crime in the heat of the moment and spent six years languishing in prison, a man who has now turned over a new leaf and wants only to be with his family, no matter how hard that may be.
Joseph, like before, plays his cards close to the chest and lets the audience simmer in anticipation as he slow-cooks the meaty plot and lets the story unravel. It's an exceptional slow-burner remarkable for its tonal and emotional consistency, for the film smoothly picks up right from where it left off, while simultaneously reversing an end that had been done so superbly and repurposing the framework of a mystery to expand the genre's possibilities, even as it revels in its leisurely-unfolding small town dynamics (like how the tea shop becomes fodder for gossip), before paving the way for clever meta twists that blur the optics completely.
Just as the fear and continuing trauma that the family feels is always palpable (the moment when they abruptly halt the conversation upon hearing the sound of a police siren says it all), even the seemingly disparate threads and finer details from the first film (Rani's obsession with English medium schools in the city, for one) that feel disjointed at first fit into this deftly-arranged jigsaw puzzle.
Sensitively reflecting on themes of domestic and sexual violence, and the unfair ostracism faced by those convicted, Drishyam 2 neither glorifies or justifies the crime; rather it mirrors the heavy guilt and the toll it's taken on him and his family (that Georgekutty published a book explaining the events that took place can be interpreted as a catharsis, a move to offload the guilt), the ensuing gulf opening between Georgekutty and Rani — whose peace of mind shattered to pieces that night six years ago — that would also prove to be his undoing. Georgekutty emerges a hero at the end, but at what cost? For the family, the house ends up becoming both their sanctuary and prison, a fact symbolised by recurring shots framed against grilled windows.
Drishyam 2 isn't completely without its warts. Anil Johnson's background score is needlessly over-demonstrative, the calculated manoeuvres unleashed by Georgekutty builds to an abrupt and rushed ending that doesn't have the same organic seamlessness that made its predecessor a riveting and satisfying watch, and the attempt to construct a complex cat-and-mouse game and pull the rug from under your feet is as evident as it's convenient and contrived. But it's nonetheless gripping and it's to Joseph's credit that it all comes together so well. If Drishyam was all heart, Drishyam 2 is more cerebral.
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