Adrishyam Should Have Remained  Invisible

Adrishyam(Malayalam-Tamil Bilingual)

Rating: * ½

Surrogate  parenthood is given the  sledgehammer treatment  in this awful Malayalam-Tamil bilingual  about a bunch of  ill-conceived characters  who suffer and suffer, but not as much as we do.

I asked myself at least  6-7 times, should I give up, use this time  to do something more creative, like digging a  trench or  blowing bubbles?

Adrishyam is  ample proof that not all work being done in Malayalam cinema is worth our while.The screenplay strewn  with outrageous twists and  turns, includes  a  woman Karthika (Anandhi)  who is  held captive  by a  despicable rich man  and a lady doctor (played by  Vinodhini  Vaidyanath  whose only  brief from the  director seems to be, ‘Act evil’) to become  a  surrogate mother.

Surrogacy is reduced to a cheap gimmick in this tasteless tacky  ‘thriller’  where good actors like Joju  George and Sharafudheen struggle  to  inject some  sense in the  persistently nonsensical  content.The latter plays  a  man in search of a  missing person. He should have looked for  the  screenwriter  before accepting this  rudderless  ratpoison of a film.

In hindsight  I  seriously wonder why I sat through what is clearly a fractured cut-and-paste  job with the  plot moving in a bipolar direction from a thriller to a sloppy surrogacy drama , falling between the two themes  with a loud  thud.

There are so many loose ends  and losers  in the plot, the film feels like  a feedinground for malnourished  homeless destitute  crammed  into  a shelter.

I still don’t know  what Joju George plays and ehat is Pratap Pothen playing a disgraced cop is  doing in the  film.He is  not up to any good. Just like the debutant director Zac Harris who it seems has  watched Drishyam multiples times. He   still doesn’t get  it.

Whoever  decided to make Adrishyam as a companion piece to the much-loved Drishyam  needs  to be shaken  by the shoulder to be reminded that the first rule of making a thriller is  a thrilling plot concept. Adrishyam is  as thrilling  as  molar surgery  that doesn’t dig deep enough.