For a movie titled Ganagandharvan , all along one gets a feeling that it is an excuse to advertise the fact that the star is appearing in a never-before-seen avatar. Ullas (Mammootty), the protagonist, is a ganamela singer struggling to make ends meet. It does begin as the singer’s story, of his disappointment at not being able to make it big, at being sidelined by better singers and his shame at being considered unworthy by his own daughter.
But then, the film soon becomes about something else: of a naive, good-hearted man being caught up in the trap of a wily businessman and his daughter (Athulya), who are looking at ways to save themselves after getting embroiled in an illegal land grabbing case. The ganamela singer part takes the back seat, so much so that one wonders whether it would have made any difference to the story if the protagonist was doing any other profession. The lack of even a single memorable song or background music underlines this fact.
- Starring: Mammootty, Athulya, Vanditha, Manoj K.Jayan
- Direction: Ramesh Pisharody
But that becomes a lesser grouse when one looks at the central theme of the movie — the misuse of laws meant to protect women. Now, this is a classic case of flogging an imaginary horse. Atleast a few seems to be troubled by the existence of these much needed laws, going by the appearance of similar themes in other industries like Bollywood too. But those indulging in this particular propaganda conveniently ignore the fact that such misuse is negligible, compared to the enormous numbers of actual atrocities that are being brought to light thanks to these laws. In Ganagandharvan, the antagonist female character also proudly claims several times that she will misuse these laws, and proceeds to do just that.
The script by director Ramesh Pisharody and Hari.P.Nair is all over the place, with too many characters making their appearance, often under the excuse of humour, none of which works. That Mammootty is playing a normal human being, without any superhuman powers is welcome, but that is probably the only positive one can say about this movie.
The singer has enough troubles in his life, yet it fails to emotionally move you, even in sequences where there was scope for the same, like in the scenes with his daughter. The whole appearance, aesthetics and structure of the movie harks back to a time gone by in Malayalam cinema. In that sense, the movie is almost like the titular character Ganagandharvan, who has become irrelevant, but doesn’t know it.
Published - September 28, 2019 01:57 pm IST
