A love story that easily derails on the way

Marconi Mathai is built around oft-repeated tropes of Malayalam cinema

A few minutes into Marconi Mathai, you see Jayaram smirking at the routine fare of All India Radio. Citing the example of FM stations and his face contorted into that familiar, over-the-top countenance he says, ‘updation venam updation’ (you need updation).

But it does not take you long to realise that you are in for a film without an iota of updation, old wine in old bottle, served in the most gimcrack manner possible. To start with, the film is built around one of the oft-repeated tropes — Jayaram caught in the throes of full-blown bachelorhood. And yes, he is kindness personified and his family and friends are engaged in this mission of finding him a bride.

Marconi Mathai is set in the water-locked village of Vallankari, where the hero, an ex-serviceman in his late 40s, is employed as the security guard of a bank.

The film maps the events that follow the entry of young Anna, all innocence and effervescence, who is hired to do the cooking and cleaning at the bank.

Synthetic ingredients

What Sanil Kalathil attempts is a noble love story, a

Charlie -meets-

Amen kind of adventure, which easily derails in the first half itself.

He gives Jayaram a golf cap and sling bag to get the boho swag right and then asks the actor to repeat himself.

Everything about the film looks synthetic, be it Mathai’s picture-postcard cottage or his love for Anna. And if you are there for Vijay Sethupathi, who plays himself, you are in for

Athmeeya Rajan plays another cliché, a woman duty-bound to love a man ‘who has not hurt a single soul’.

Navamy Sudhish