Movie review - Diamond Necklace (Malayalam)

I would shamelessly admit, in the first few minutes I had a feeling that the movie was about to fizzle out soon. But after an needlessly hurried opening, the pieces fall smoothly into their place. Hats off to the director Lal Jose. He has shown his versatility to handle subjects, characters, landscape beyond those timezones. This is where our so called greats failed - to adapt.

The film is cast mainly on three  hinges, which is worth the mention

1. Dubai :
I belong to a generation who migrated to Emirates to make their dough. Back then it was a land of boredom. The money earned was invested back in homeland. These expatriates dreamt of happily living ever after they earned a lot.

But soon the second generation who found out that they prefer the Emirates to the homeland and found it comfortable living there.

By then giant global  financial monster of asset creation gobbled up the emirates. The money generated started to be invested there. It was supported by the new western educated rulers. The emirates started to grow rich, sauve and aesthetic. Along with it came many avenues to burn up your cash.

The after effect was a credit culture that traps many of the youth in. The director brilliantly , effortlessly dwells on this major issue. He doesn't go overboard with speeches.
Slowly but surely the happy-go-lucky hero finds his life sinking into the credit swamp, taking his loved ones along.

2. Women

More the less its a fair sex  dominated movie where we see how the interaction with different women ultimately affects the evolution of  the protagonist's life. All the characters are sketched and executed brilliantly. We see a host of brilliant performances.

It starts off with elderly colleague pampering him with love and care only to have her heart broken in the end.
The Tamil nurse walks away with much applaud for her body language, attitude and emoting. She comes to Dubai to fulfil her mother's dream, only to have it broken by the man she loved.
Then comes the immature and bubbly wife, who is despised by the hero and she demonstrates the depth of her love towards the end.
The women who's dumped by her fiance on learning her illness finds solace in another man, the protagonist, who's also out there to take advantage. In the end she realizes there's more to life than material and indirectly imparting the knowledge to the protagonist.

Then there's the mother who thinks the world of her son. Although she's very well aware that all's not that well with him. She silently plots for the change in him.

Then there's a diamond necklace which binds the entire story together.

Technically speaking, there were instances when the story was rushed through. This being a longer movie compared to modern standards, the director must have decided to concentrate on the intrinsic climax.

There are some very lasting imageries. The girl deleting her fiance's details from the phone was one. It showed the longetivity and concept of modern relationship. So was diamond necklace sinking.

At the same time there were also some ordinary visuals. They looked as if someone else.screwed in a few in between.

The music was exemplary. It seems the modern theology of lighting is to create an artificial feeling of the whole setup. Or even reality may be given back seat in favor of aestheticd.