Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal movie review: Anaswara Rajan’s dark comedy mostly works, but trips at the finish line

For Anjali (Anaswara Rajan), life at her home in a village in Thiruvananthapuram is nothing short of suffocating as no one listens to her hopes or desires, except her grandmother Sumithra (Mallika Sukumaran). Her parents Murali (Azees Nedumangad) and Sudha (Aswathy Chand Kishor), who anyway don’t give many hoots about her wishes, are now too preoccupied with hastily marrying her off to Akhil (Arun A Kumar) after learning that a young man named Suhail (Siju Sunny) is trying to win her over romantically. Despite knowing that Akhil is, in Sumithra’s words, “quite toxic”, and emotionally abusive towards Anjali, her parents remain determined to go ahead with the engagement, as they are convinced that, according to Sudha, this would somehow “make Anjali get (emotionally) attached to him”. Sometimes, the logic of the elderly can be just ‘WOW!’

While preparations for the engagement ramp up, and Akhil’s harassment goes on unabated, tragedy strikes Anjali again as Sumithra dies of a heart attack, stripping her of the only ray of hope she had. With the news of her death, relatives and locals start pouring into their home. The incidents that follow and the way things go out of hand through the in/actions and un/spoken words of various characters form the rest of Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal.

On the surface, Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal bears a strong resemblance to Senna Hegde’s Thinkalazhcha Nishchayam (2021) and even follows a similar style in narrative progress, although the central ‘events’ around which both films revolve differ, and the S Vipin directorial leans heavily into dark humour. The film also strongly evokes déjà vu from Arun Vaiga’s Upacharapoorvam Gunda Jayan (2022), and might even remind one of Lijo Jose Pellissery’s magnum opus Ee Ma Yau (2018), though the treatment here is its polar opposite. What unites these films, however, is the way they all thrive on the chaos that erupts when tightly knit groups, separated by ego and petty resentments, are forced to coexist under one roof, even though only for a short period of time.

Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal builds its narrative around this tension, milking the absurdity in it to the maximum. With the exception of a few characters — Anjali, Murali, Sudha and some others — most don’t care about offering Sumithra a peaceful farewell. Instead, everyone seems more interested in positioning themselves as the biggest fish in the room, only to end up becoming the metaphorical elephants in it.

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What works in the film’s favour is the organic way in which Vipin ensures narrative momentum, allowing much of the humour to evolve naturally from the situations. By tapping into the innate natures of the characters and making them interact in ways that heighten tension, he draws out comedy without resorting to too many forced one-liners. From Karayogam president Venu’s (Baiju Santhosh) obsession with being the top dog, to Murali’s submissiveness in the face of power, Suhail’s attempts to win Murali’s favour and thereby Anjali’s heart, neighbour Prasannan’s (Saji Sabana) protest against cremating Sumithra near his property, and Suhail’s friend Shakthi (Joemon Jyothir) being mistaken for a migrant worker and handed the task of preparing the cremation site, the film carefully layers these threads to energise the plot. Apart from them, there are several other sketchy characters in the film who meddle in matters that don’t concern them, collectively keeping the atmosphere alive with dark, often biting humour.

However, where the film falters is in its emotional moments, which fail to land with the intended depth. This is compounded by Vipin’s inclusion of a tokenistic moment of “woman empowerment” near the end, which comes across as performative and added solely to balance the mistreatment the female characters endured till then. (Spoilers ahead) Making a woman light a pyre does not, by itself, challenge patriarchal norms, particularly within the familial units, and it’s time Malayalam cinema moved beyond this trope. It didn’t work in Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Mohanlal-starrer Lucifer (2019), and it hasn’t worked here either. Instead, such moments only reveal the respective filmmakers’ shallow grasp of gender politics. In Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal, this is especially disappointing because, until then, the film had convincingly portrayed — through dark humour — the way women are casually sidelined within families. With the final “justice-serving” moment, where Murali (in a scene reminiscent of Thomachan, also played by Azees Nedumangad, lashing out at his siblings in Vaazha for mistreating his son) stands up for the actual affected, Vipin ironically undermines his efforts until that point.

Although Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal doesn’t overstay its welcome or descend into boredom, there are points where the jokes and situations, such as Arun’s family struggling to find Anjali’s house, start to feel repetitive. It becomes clear in these moments that Vipin is running out of material. Thankfully, he wraps things up before the film takes a full nosedive. Another weakness in the script lies in his inability to write characters out of the narrative in a seamless manner. Several departures feel contrived and abrupt, particularly in the cases of Suhail, Shakthi and Prasannan. They deserved more thoughtful payoffs, like the ones received by painters Sandeep and Ani, who got entangled in the chaos in a funny manner.

While Anaswara Rajan is impressive as Anjali, shining in both the comedic and emotional moments, there’s ultimately not much for her character to do compared to her male counterparts. Along with the fact that Suhail is a rehash of every role Siju Sunny has played so far, the actor offers nothing new in his portrayal. While the same could be said for Joemon Jyothir, he manages to elicit a few laughs through his depiction.

Azeez Nedumangad, as usual, delivers a standout performance, even though his character bears similarities to some of his recent roles. His ability to use his entire body while performing is a joy to watch, and his interactions with Baiju Santhosh and Noby Marcose (who plays Murali’s co-brother) are among the film’s highlights. Baiju is perfect in a role that is tailor-made for him, while Noby impresses with his performance in more serious moments, underscoring that he, too, deserves more layered roles like those Azeez has been receiving. On the technical front, Ankit Menon’s music is commendable.

Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal movie cast: Anaswara Rajan, Baiju Santhosh, Mallika Sukumaran, Joemon Jyothir, Siju Sunny, Azees Nedumangad, Noby Marcose, Aswathy Chand Kishor
Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal movie director: S Vipin
Vyasana Sametham Bandhumithradhikal movie rating: 2.5 stars