Ayisha

While biopics traditionally aim to depict the entire life of a real person or focus on historically important period of their lives, Ayisha breaks the mold by capturing a lesser-known period of Nilambur Ayisha's expatriate life as a gaddamma in Saudi Arabia '88. Taking us through an intimate journey, the movie hints at how much character and grit and fierceness Nilambur Ayisha has through flashbacks from her past as well as her life as a maid at the palace. Exquisite cinematography by Vishnu Sharma makes gives the feel of an cross-border cinematic experience, complemented by a fitting evocative soundtrack by M Jayachandran (special mention to Masalama sung by Shreya Ghoshal), further enhancing the immersive experience.

Manju Warrier brings vulnerability and emotional depth to her character's fullest potential(which, I felt, was limited in the script) but it is Mona Tawil who steals the show as Mama, as her grief and loneliness linger in our hearts even after the credits roll. A large diversity of cast from different countries, speaking different languages all add colour to a heartwarming tribute to Nilambur Ayisha while also proving a fact that Manju Warrier can carry the weight of a big budget, female-oriented, multilingual movie just as impressively as any superstar can do in Malayalam Cinema.

With negative reviews and poor box office performance, I avoided watching it for the longest time. But now that I've finally caught up, I regret missing it for so long. Apparently, the movie is inspired by a real-life story.

This is the story of Ayisha, a woman from Nilambur, who migrates to the Gulf to work as a housemaid for an elite Arab family. She develops a special bond with Mama, the eldest member of the family who calls the shots in the palace. This beautiful relationship and other phases of her life are explored in the movie.

The story takes a bit of time to settle, but once it does, you are completely immersed in their world. The screenplay is beautifully written, making you root for the characters. It is not a typical damsel-in-distress story or a portrayal of the poor plight of NRIs, which are often the template for Gulf stories in Malayalam cinema.

Manju Warrier leads the show brilliantly. She is aging with such grace and poise, which is visible on screen. Mona Tawil, playing Mama, is the real star of the movie. She nails her part, making you laugh, cry, and feel connected to her. The chemistry between the two is organic and reaches your heart. Krishna Shankar adds an innocent charm to his character, which works well.

The beautiful palette of the Gulf is captured perfectly, adding a sweet essence to the movie. However, the songs are skippable, including the trendy number 'Kannilu Kannilu.' The only flaw is the somewhat absurd and illogical idea of Manju's character having such a profound impact on so many people.

Despite this minor glitch, the movie is worth watching and shouldn't be missed. This simple tale is bound to touch you emotionally.

#pranureviews #Ayisha #AyishaReview.

Ok First Half and a Boring Second Half. The movie started well. The plot was giving some resemblance with Dileep's 'Spanish Masala'. The making was impressive, the shots were superb, the shots of the palace were really extravagant, the songs were good...However, after giving hope, the movie lost its momentum, became tedious and finally ended in a dull manner. The climax was too predictable and not appealing to me. Also, the characters extensively speak Arab, Tamil languages, and no subtitles were provided, which also affected the movie watching in a bad way. Overall, a one-time watchable movie, especially for the extravagant cinematography.

Unique storyline, it is based on a true story. It does a good job to stir up different emotions in audience. One of a kind movie, definitely watch. Though direction could have been better. Primary characters are shown to be interacting with each other in different languages pretty easily, despite of the fact that other ones not having any significant knowledge of opposite languages. Audience needs to be pretty ignorant to not notice this. To make this digestable a scene should have been added that characters are trying to learn each other's language.

Specifically catered to Malayali audience, no English subtitles though watched it in TN. Though there are atleast 3-4 languages used in the movie still not sure why no English subtitles were provided. This was pretty basic stuff, not sure how they missed its importance.

Manju Warrier as expected plays the central character around which all other characters revolve. She has done a great job and supporting actors did well to keep up with her!

As I have mentioned the screenplay is the dragging part of this movie.because story was decent and manju ma'am acted well.with better screenplay and lesser run time it would have been a good watch.still I am giving 5 star for the story and manju maam's acting.and the funny part is out of nowhere there is a dance number.ha ha what was that.that was not required at all.for the standards of malayalam movie in 2023 everyone expect a lott from malayalam movies which this movie lags.so you can easily skip it or if you still want to watch it then you can may be by forwarding.as the makers also could have easily chopped 25mins.