After a hiatus, as is his wont, Murali Gopy is back on screen with an interesting and different role in Arun Kumar Aravind's film Ee Adutha Kaalathu (EAK). Not only has he scripted the movie, which “clicks into place like a Rubik's cube,” but he also plays a key role in the film.
Following the few but memorable roles he has essayed on the silver screen, Murali's career graph is bound to be keenly watched by cineastes. Naturally, expectations are high as he is late thespian Bharat Gopy's son. But each time Murali has appeared on the big screen, he has proved that he has cinema in his genes! While he appeared as a rowdie and villain in his debut movie Rasikan , he played Dr. Alex Varghese, a suave and polished man who is the mastermind behind a murder, in Blessy's Bhramaram , and Bharathan, a rough and tough truck driver with a golden heart, in Kamal's Gaddhama .
Corporate player
This time around Murali plays a shrewd, street-smart, and ambitious corporate player Ajay Kurien who wants to make it big in life. He is the chief executive officer of a hospital and is into medical tourism. He is someone who cut his teeth in the killing fields of Mumbai's corporate world. Father of a 11-year-old, Ajay is married to Madhuri, a head turner who also grew up in Mumbai.
“None of the characters in this film is a uni-dimensional black-and-white person. They are all too human with positive and negative traits surfacing in each character. Most of us are like that…. We might have set high moral standards for ourselves but there are occasions when we might have to lie or suppress the truth. There might be occasions when our heart rules and calm reasoning is taken over by passion,” explains Murali.
Thus his latest film has five such characters from different strata of society. A set of events tie their lives together and it is only when certain actions of theirs set into motion a chain of incidents that the true or complete picture is revealed. “That is why I said the movie is akin to Rubik's cube. When the relevant pieces of the cube are manipulated, we get a side with the same colour,” says Murali.
He says Arun had initially approached him to discuss the possibility of casting him in a film. That is when Murali happened to show him the one-line story of EAK . “I have this habit of jotting down the one-line story of themes that strike me as interesting. I have quite a collection of one-line stories that are quite descriptive and complete in itself. Arun liked this one very much and that is how I became the scenarist of the film as well,” says Murali.
He says that it was the excellent vibes he shared with Arun that persuaded him to be on board the film. “He is an editor and so it was interesting to work with him as he enjoyed the cuts I had made in the script itself,” says Murali.
This is the second movie that he is scripting. The first one was Lal Jose's Rasikan .
Incidentally, Murali's second film as the scenarist is also set in the capital city. One gets to hear the true Thiruvananthapuram dialect that is spoken by most people here and not the splayed dialect that one gets to hear in the movies and serials. EAK has several voices speaking in different accents and languages, presenting a microcosm of a city that is changing overnight.
