Indian romantic comedies have a really predictable storyline and arc to it, something which adheres to all the do’s and dont's of the so & so genre which often trudges ahead casually simply on an automatic pilot mode.
Boy meets girl, girl meets boy. Both usually come from two different family backgrounds and/or heritage – poor, rich; rich & poor or whatever the case maybe - unless of course it’s a triangular love story.
Then they fell in love(Obviously!). Then a typical musical/rom-com ensues in the second and third quarter of the movie without ever calling for attentive viewing accompanied by an all out, "All’s well that ends well” happy-go-lucky ending intended to please and overwhelm the audience’s emotions and nothing much except that!.
Lots of running around the trees, traditional music, playing cat and mouse stuff, in-jokes, side jokes, gags, conundrums, big fat weddings, opposition from the stereotypic Indian family either from the boys side or the girl side.(In-fact mostly from the girl’s family. Hi. Hi. Experience counts!) Unrequited love. Bleeding love. And after a good couple of hours deal, they end up being together following the uppy-downy melodrama which simply pushes and pulls ahead the plot.
The narrative and the direction will be centered around the hero & heroine and the screenwriters just dusts up the good old primitive tales with all the ingredients nicely woven in and if done well(only if!) you’ll most probably end up getting a pretty good masala film out of it as well with high class acting credentials from all parties concerned, be it the hero, the heroine or even the supporting casts for that matter.
We’ve all been used to it – perennially – for all these merry good years even in the Yash Johar, Karan Johar era which provided a certain superfluous romantic Jodi that is SRK & Kajol(Imtiaz Ali is an exception though! Although his movies aren’t fully fledged rom-com’s so to speak!)
But here’s a film which defies all of that “been there, seen that before” sort of nostalgic scenario to a marginal degree and delivers an all new perspective to rom-coms being made in India even when it falls just a touch lopsided to that all elusive underdeveloped category.
Right from the first 10-15 minutes or so of this movie, you’ll realize that difference – that this is not your stereotypic, cliched romantic family entertainment which goes about its business in a highly predictable manner.
Director Jude Antony Joseph & writer Manuel Thomas along with its two extremely likeable casts in Nazriya Nazim & Navin Pauly delivers in “Om Shanthi Oshana!” a half baked yet a commendable fresh perspective to a Romantic Comedy which reminds me, instinctively of, the late John Hughes’s era.
Mr. Hughes, a last grade Hollywood director from the 80’s and 90’s, is perhaps the only director to have made so many existential romance/bromance/comedy blended movies in his golden period; movies which are more tom-boysque & Jolly good in nature that also takes a really down to earth, ground zero approach to genre cinema.(Remember Ferris Bullier’s Day off & National Lampoon.?)
The story stems from the heroine’s point of view, the extremely cute and cuddly “Pooja” played by Nazriya Nazeem, and the priority insistence of storytelling pivots on her’s feelings and insecurities but not the counterpart’s feelings and emotions, who, in this movie is “Giri” played by Navin Pauly.
She is a tom-boy, quirky teenage 12th grade student belonging to a peaceful, middle class, Malayali family and he – “Giri” played by Navin Pauly – is a senior, public activist/farmer with startling shades to the good old “Angry Young man” phenomenon from the 70’s originally portrayed by the great Amitabh Bachan!(Not exactly but kind of!).
She falls in love with the masculine guy. Ends up following him & envisaging him throughout the entire period of the first & second quarter of the movie until and unless the guy opens up his mind, rejects her proposal and tells her to concentrate more on her studies & stuff, rather than following him pretty much everywhere & wherever he goes – “You’re a cute girl. You’re growing up too early to be a feminine. Your family have some immense ambitions of you becoming a doctor. You could reach extreme highs in life. So brush aside all these “distractions” and start concentrating on your studies."
(A really simple one-line advice/preach which is mostly given by the parent to the kid but not the hero to the heroine! – GOT THE DIFFERENCE?)
What the film lacks however is the utter poignancy of a classic romantic literature - the kind of “Thoovanathumbikal” visual metaphors - which, is perhaps the only thing what the debutante director and his movie is lacking here, dare I say the “X” factor which separates “the goods” from “the greats” or the men’s from the boys for that matter.
Om Shanthi Oshana, like all other similar genre screenplay’s often commit, falls prey to that minor mistakes called “spelling out period changes through mere dialogue!” instead of translating the phenomenon onto the screens with subtle/gradual character development and/or visually aesthetic generation steer away.
There is a desperate attempt in the film to give the material a much required literary angle/point of view by the filmmakers; the kind of chapter vise novelist’s perspective to movies which more or less replicates an existential facet of a pile driver’s dramatist as opposed to the masquerading poignancy of an auteur’s connoisseurship(which explains heck of a lot as to why the feminine character is somewhat underwritten!)
The problem when you try & superimpose the core period changes into a screenplay with allusions to novel or a short story for instance, stems from the fact that it will degrade/demean the material into mere dialogue/subtitle mode rather than divulging the same through transcending visual metaphors.
The film do take its merry good time in unraveling the unconventional plot but what holds your attention throughout the movie is the surprise elements showcasing some of the otherwise less important characters in Pooja’s life, who doubles its way into the material albeit sloppily making the movie all the more believable so to speak(It’s like a realistic movie inside the other stuff!).
The final act doesn’t stereotype the typical, eyeballing Indian families thankfully and that perhaps is a far superior a conclusion vis-à-vis what we’ve been used to for all these years – The predictability even in the predictability!.
The music composed by Shaan Rahman are soothing for the ears as they successfully marries the film’s central theme with astounding visual imagery.
Nazriya on the lead is good as the protagonist “Pooja” without being outstanding, often coming up with the cutest of expression and gags which are also much beyond what I could have possibly imagine to fathom from a young actress like her(She’s got star credentials!).
She hams it up in places mostly in the first half but when her Barbie-doll, near porcelain kind of face meshes up with misty-eyed glycerine tears, you tend to reach out to the character even better whilst empathizing with her in the process, with all the conundrum she’s been facing in her altar life up until the climax.
Navin Pauly does a commendable job to his underwritten role and leaves a mark on the material with his soulful expressions. With every single film this young man is proving his star credentials and his acting capabilities no harm.
Vineeth Sreenivasan, Aju Varghese, Renji Panicker, Lal Jose, Akashya Premnath, Vijaya Raghavan - they all do justice to their inconsequential yet soothingly moving presences as the all important heroine-supportive character roles also springing a few elementary surprises in the most penultimate of moments.
The visuals are outstanding with cinematographer Vinod Illampally capturing the pristine beauty and outright elegance of the countryside i.e., the northern part of kerala where the majority of its narrative is entrenched.
There’s an out-of-the box anti-cigarette commercial which elevates the standard of creative thinking on theater with distinct & distain.!
So that’s a wrap then. That’s my review on “Om Shanthi Oshana”. An unconventional approach to a straight forward romantic comedy which gradually grows on you with its skillful, superbly measured and often uncanny drama which is also devoid of cliché and conventional arc, the two overused of terms to describe such films.
Must watch the film if you’re a sucker for well told vernacular love stories and more so if you want to enjoy a fresh new perspective to love in movies via an existential genre blend. Even if you aren’t a sucker for love stories, you might as well try your luck with this overtly sweet movie simply because it’s just the kind of film which will slowly but surely resonate with you in the days post the viewing.
As an audience, resonance is something which I consider the most before recommending a film to an audience. In the case of “Om Shanthi Oshana” the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.
