Jithindurden

Such a bland, straightforward crime thriller that is filled with plotholes. The fact that Mammootty suggested Vinayakan for a role that was originally planned for Prithviraj makes the miscasting even more glaring. If they had put some effort into making it anything more than the superficial stuff, this could've been way better. I mean, they included so many dialogues for Vinayakan's character, most of which sounded stupid, to make sense for the way the movie ends, but besides those almost expository dialogues, it doesn't explore anything thematically when it could've been a brilliant mirror to the main crime that is being investigated. The more I think about this movie, the more disappointing it becomes.

Victoria is a movie that immediately shows that it's a low-budget film that wants to be artistically elevated while speaking about the effects of patriarchy on women; that is very clear from the way it is shot and the inclusion of a rooster at the very beginning. And that's the best and worst part of the movie. The movie shows the life of Victoria through the events of a single day, where everything tumultuous is basically in her mind, because the actual events have either already happened or are about to happen. But the day unravels through what happens in a beauty parlour through various women, conceived in a way that all the male characters only appear through the phone or from outside the doors, shows the larger picture of how patriarchy and other social evils affect women. Now, almost nothing in it is exactly new, but it gives off the feeling of honesty that is hard to put in a film. Even the way the movie decided to wrap up was in a way that I initially thought lacked the punch it should have. But I'm sure that was an informed decision because even though it was something that could've been presented as something revelatory in terms of empowerment, they chose to show it, the exact same thing, as something way more realistic, something that actually happens a lot. The performances were all solid, and Meenakshi Jayan was incredible in the title role. Overall, it is a very good movie that still has some issues. However, both its strengths and weaknesses are part of the design, although the length could've been longer, even the interval felt too early. I am really keen to see what Sivaranjini could come up with if she got a pretty good budget for her next movie.

Eko felt very fresh for a mystery thriller in the sense that, as an audience, the search for Kuriachan, which is what all the characters are interested in, is not exactly something we are interested in, and it still manages to be a damn good mystery thriller. The way it moves through all the characters and their motivations without ever really showing the full picture was done beautifully. But the answers that are needed are always present. The mystery was interesting also due to the way it is directed.

The atmosphere created using the cinematography and sound design was perfect. And the performances were incredible from everyone except one. The only problem with the movie is the one central casting where they chose to cast someone who is not a Malayali as a Malayali, and he just didn't feel right in the role. There are so many scenes in the movie that show a clear direction choice of using closeups as the intensity of the scene or the dialogue builds up, which is not the case for this one character because of the casting. But besides that, this movie worked really well.

The question of freedom and being a master as themes was conveyed very well. Even though I wasn't emotionally invested in the characters for most of the movie, the ending was really satisfactory. In a way, it might be sadistic, but I was literally grinning at the end like I watched some feel-good movie.