Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam

I know that the South Indian film industry during the Covid pandemic, in its infinite wisdom, decided to flood our screens with movie after movie, somehow convincing us it was a "magical run." Sure, there were a few titles that didn't immediately induce projectile vomiting, but the real boiling point for yours truly was the rise of the OTT flagbearers (Fahad Fasil, Vijay Sethupathi, Prithviraj Sukumaran) who suddenly started cashing in on their newfound "status" before we all collectively realized they were just churning out the same repetitive garbage.

Here is the template, folks, the secret sauce of "newwave" Malayalam cinema that apparently has critics sporting boners in their pants: dysfunctional family/couple from a European art-house film (check!), isolated house with suspiciously lush landscape (double-check!), a "psycho" Fahad (because apparently, that's his only acting range these days), a bunch of countryside-dwelling oddballs, and a try-hard-to-be world cinema slow pace (bingo!). It's genuinely hilarious watching these so-called intellectuals rave about what they're calling "newwave." Majority of Malayalam movies under the guise of 'Newwave' call themselves realistic cinema. I got so damn tired of these films, it's like these directors watched a Yorgos Lanthimos or Robert Eggers movie for the first time, had a collective brain fart, and decided the pinnacle of artistic expression was to rip it off and create their own low-budget, COVID-constrained versions.

So, let's talk about "Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam" (Joyful Mystery), shall we? A road trip disguised as an arthouse film. Now, I don't inherently hate arthouse movies, but this particular specimen was utter waste to sit through and pointless trash. This is a prime example of director Don Palathara, who clearly just wanted to kill time, just like every other filmmaker shamelessly capitalizing on a global pandemic. And the truly depressing part? This kind of cinematic navel-gazing makes up about 85% of the movie output these days, with every other Malayalam flick slapping a "newwave" or "experimental" tag on their steaming pile of nothingness.

The trailer was actually intriguing. And you know me, I'm a sucker for films that bravely ditch any semblance of a narrative, where characters wander aimlessly, going absolutely nowhere plot-wise, but somehow the "trip" is supposedly worth it. I desperately needed a break from the usual same-geography-set snooze-fests and foolishly thought this might be it. Oh man, "bad" found a whole new definition that day, and so did "pretentious." Director Don wants to be the great white hope of Malayalam newwave, but the harsh reality is, he's just really, really bad at it. I actually enjoyed Don's earlier work, like "Shavam" and "1956, Central Travancore," but this and his other 2021 masterpiece, "Everything Is Cinema," have been dreadful. This one oozes pretentious "chemistry," forcing this "imperfect couple" down our throats with heavy-handed metaphors and dialogues so unnatural they sound like they were translated from a particularly bad philosophy textbook. And of course, Don couldn't resist throwing in his own self-indulgent take on meta cinema, because why not? It has a fleeting few moments that briefly rise above the standard throwaway road trip yawn-fest, but it ultimately fails to deliver anything with even a hint of nuance (and don't even get me started on the clichéd religious names - so profound!).

Don Palathara clearly spent his time channeling the ghosts of Sam Mendes's "Away We Go," Richard Linklater's "Before Trilogy," and then vomited that inspiration onto the stylistic canvases of Angela Schanelec, Hong Sang-soo, Ramin Bahrani, Chantal Akerman, Eric Rohmer, and the entire mumblecore movement to deliver this lukewarm turd about a pretentious urban couple and their utterly boring antics.

It bored me to death. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing inherently against Malayalam movies, but the sheer fatigue induced by this constant stream of pretentious garbage is staggering. This film is a total dud, comfortably nestled in my personal list of the worst films ever made, right alongside atrocities like Vipin Vijay's "Chitrasutram" (2011), Jis Joy's "Bicycle Thieves" (2013), and Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's "S Durga" (2017), which somehow thought using metal music and a train as a metaphor for misery made it profound, when it was just gruelling for all the wrong reasons.

Santhoshathinte Onnam Rahasyam (Joyful Mystery) takes place entirely inside a car and that's the first metaphor that Don Palathara plays with; that all personal issues are closed and even when there's an external stimuli, it only makes things worse. Where this young couple is starting to fight over an unwanted pregnancy. You can relate to the arguments these two people have as you reflect on your own life and wait to see what could be the number one secret of happiness. By the end of the film, you find it out. Brilliant little film.

Palathara comes up with a winner in a fly-on-the-dashboard pip into a car journey that takes a man and a woman to a clinic for pregnancy test. Acid exchanges between the two under tension is brought out by a taut script, sharp dialogue and excellent performance by the two characters, especially Rima Kallingal.

Clearly the movie is made with a hope that the feminism angle and climax message would impress certain audience and hopefully fetch some awards.

But it did not work neither as an entertainer nor as any great art.

It is super boring, was hard to finish even with fast forward . It is a Covid movie with limited resources, so it appear in a amateurish way.