Keerthy Suresh-starrer Penguin is ambitious but flawed

Why was this film named Penguin? It is maybe the director’s way of saying looks can be deceptive. The semi-aquatic birds may look cute and charming, but they have a dark side too. Penguin mothers are known for kidnapping other’s chicks. The scientists hold the hormones of female penguins responsible for their violent behaviour. In the meantime, penguins also are known to be dedicated parents. This information may help you understand the metaphorical premise of Eashvar Karthic’s thriller.

Penguin has flashes of a writer with some strong ideas. The scene in which all grieving family members and friends abandon the departed, to search for the lost kid, says a lot about human behaviour without saying much. Keerthy Suresh’s Rhythm dreams about a Charlie Chaplin-mask wearing killer luring her son into woods and hurting him. It is not a random dream. Her unconscious mind puts together all the information that she gathered about her child and imagines the worst. Rhythm is defiant, and she willingly goes looking for problems. Take the hospital scene in the beginning, Rhythm is playing peekaboo with someone’s kid, and when she doesn’t see the kid, she goes looking for her. It is not even her kid. But, she still goes looking for her (This pattern repeats later in the movie). In the same sequence, she is warned of a beehive in the corner. And yet she goes close to it knowing that she is terrified of flying bugs. The doctor particularly advises her not to visit the lake, which may give her a panic attack. Cut to next scene, she is sitting at the lake, alone in the dark.

Rhythm is a curious being and even a trouble seeker. That explains why she would undermine the fact that she is heavily pregnant and keep going out looking for trouble. “I am just pregnant. Not brain-damaged,” Rhythm responds when she is asked a rhetorical question about her pregnancy.

The set-up convinced me to buckle-up for an intense edge-of-the-seat ride as the characters struggle to overcome their traumatic experiences. But, the film lost me after the return of Rhythm’s son Ajay.

Ajay is not speaking and he feels discomfort by human touch. What is the first thing any reasonable parent should do after a medical examination? They should have subjected him to a psychiatric evaluation. Nobody even suggests it. Instead, Rhythm takes him home and even aspires to break his silence by bribing him with a cup of ice cream. Why don’t our filmmakers understand psychological damage should be diagnosed and treated with professional help? And mere mother’s love won’t suffice to fix deeply broken things. The best Eashvar Karthic could do was to have doctor David doll out some superficial advice about the child’s mental health.

I wonder why nobody in Eashvar’s team didn’t think that a traumatized child would require professional help.

But, that error of judgement creates dramatic tension in the movie. Similar to Dustin Henderson from Stranger Things 2 finding the creature from upside down and taking it home without thinking too much about its place of origin. However, Eashvar Karthic exhausts the solid set up for extravagant interval block.

Eashvar fails to pad up interesting ideas with enough material and follow them through. Especially, the male characters are mere dummies. Rhythm’s second husband is a joke. Her pet dog Cyrus helps her through some difficult times than the men in her life.

The good thing is Eashvar Karthic tries to stay true to the genre he has picked. The mood, visual style, twists (even though you see them coming) and Keerthy Suresh’s determined performance make this flawed movie watchable. But, a little focus and some research would have made it a lot more than merely watchable.