One for the family

Director Jeethu Joseph calls Drishyam, a family drama.

Mohanlal in a scene from Drishyam

With the crime thriller Detective , writer-director Jeethu Joseph opened his account in the Malayalam industry. His next film, Mummy & Me won accolades for the freshness of its theme, followed by My Boss , which set the cash registers ringing. Then he threw the curveball that was the Prithviraj-starrer Memories , which turned out to be one of the biggest hits of the year. His latest film, Drishyam , is already in theatres. Looks like Jeethu is having a dream run in Mollywood.

“I don’t know the recipe to make a hit film. When I have a thread of story , I try to get feedback from various people who are close to me. My effort has been to present the stories in a natural and realistic style,” says Jeethu.

Drishyam is about a crisis faced by George Kutty (Mohanlal), an orphan, living in a high range town, with his wife Rani (Meena) and their two daughters. “Mohanlal is willing to be moulded the way the story demands. The actor hasn’t been doing many such rustic characters of late. Yet, he fits right into the role.”

The director calls the film a ‘family drama’. “We usually brand a film as a thriller, simply because there is some mystery in the narrative or the story unfolds through an investigation. But I don’t subscribe to this. Although there are some twists in the tale and some suspense as well,

Drishyam is essentially the story of a family,” says Jeethu.

Christmas is an important season as far as the film industry is concerned. The director does not seen to be perturbed that his film is going up against some big releases… “The other language films are targeted at a certain age group. The number of viewers who come to the theatres during the season will be high and that could benefit all the releases. There could be some who will pick only one film from the lot and that is the only time when a competition as such happens,” says Jeethu.

His next film has been scripted by another writer and has some elements of fantasy. He is also working on a script, which will be directed by a debutant director.