William Shakespeare once compared the world to a stage in ‘As You Like It’ over three centuries ago, and the lines hold true today, with many a writer, director and musician drawing on the concept of society donning masks every morning and staging a giant play. It is the other half of this concept that debutant director and scriptwriter Rajesh Nair attempts to explore in his recently released film, Annum Innum Ennum , with the exception that we are treated to the action backstage, the real workings of the human mind, when the grease comes off and the curtains fall.
Annum Innum Ennum deals with the lives of two couples from different generations and the experiences they go through as the ‘inner fraud’ that resides in every human being is slowly exposed.
Rajesh believes this fraudulent character is embedded in every one but it is men who tend to act on it more often. He does not mince words as he elaborates his beliefs, “I am of the opinion that us men are the primary reason for marital discord in most cases and that there is no such thing as unconditional love. All marriages are happy so long as the status of the couple, be it financial or emotional, remains the same. When the standards begin to slip, problems start.”
He proceeds to drive home the point with a metaphor, “Every one has become materialistic, and people are treated no better than a shiny new gadget. When a relationship is new, we go out of our way to sustain it, but once we are used to the other person, their value decreases. Much like a gadget, we only realise how much they mean to us when we lose them.”
It is this very concept that Sreedhar (Jishnu Raghavan) and Sidharth ‘Casanova’ Menon (Siddique) display on screen. Sreedhar is a doctor who wants to become a writer because a book he wrote long ago was successful, while Casanova is unhappy with his marriage because of the couple’s inability to conceive a child. In this frustrated state, both of them make rash decisions that lead to the events that unfold, leaving their wives Anjana (Radhika) and Indu (Rekha) to suffer. The cast includes Thilakan, Salim Kumar, Ashokan, Nishan and Surinamese model turned actress Fareisa Joemmanbaks. Music is scored by Varun Unni while Prashanth Krishna wields the camera. The film is produced under the banner of Vaya Films.
