An interesting tidbit – due to the immense success of Drishyam (2013), it was remade into four other Indian languages – Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Sinhala. In 2019, there was even a Chinese remake named Sheep Without a Shepherd. All the remakes were done with entirely different casts and screenplays. Herein lies one of the enduring qualities of Drishyam – it has a story that is so compelling and ingenious that it would work just on paper. Before I begin, I need to say that I have not seen the original Malayalam version of Drishyam (2013), but saw the excellent Tamil remake Papanasam (2015) and the Hindi remake also called Drishyam (2015). Since the plot is the same and for the purpose of convenience and coherence, I will be focusing on the Malayalam original.
Georgekutty (Mohanlal) is a cable TV network owner in a remote and hilly village in Kerala. He lives a happy life with his wife Rani and 2 girls. The first half revolves around the depiction of their happy family. Anju (Ansiba), Georgekutty’s daughter, goes on a school trip. After a few days, a guy who had been on the school trip with her meets Anju. He blackmails her with a video of her that he had captured during the school trip. In the course of events he is accidentally killed by Rani (Meena) and Anju (Esther Anil). Georgekutty on returning home is appraised of the events and thus begins a cat and mouse game as the murdered person is the son of IG Geeta Prabhakar (Asha Sharath) and Prabhakar (Siddique). How the family weathers the storm that ensues during the murder investigation forms the rest of the story leading to a deeply satisfying and unexpected climax.
It is easy to slip into complaint mode and declare that the first half of the movie lacks pace and that it should get to the story problem faster. God knows that was my amateurish observation too, but I realised one of the reasons the second half is so riveting and relentless is because the first half surreptitiously puts you in a comfort zone, allowing you to map out the plot you think you know. Another reason is that by letting you watch all the family’s everyday happenings, you will begin to feel the languid living pace of an everyday Indian family. The familial love is palpable, so much so that when it all hits the fan you will be entirely vested in the family of four.
Georgekutty is a man after my own heart. If ever there is a movie that depicts a person who is a TV addict and how information gleaned from the imaginary worlds in movies can save a life, this is that movie. He is also a family man through and through. He is a good man, until he is not. Nobody messes with a man whose purpose on earth is to keep his family safe… by whatever means possible.
The second half becomes a totally different beast and I am now convinced it work because of the first half which lays down the foundation. Like any Keigo Higashino crime novel, Drishyam isn’t a whodunnit, it’s a howtheheckdidhedoit. This is a ballad of unintentional murder and ingenious cover-up; it’s the ultimate “how to get away with murder” plot. This is where the movie shines with a plot that is unpredictable. How it takes particular glee in exploiting the plight of the family packs a wallop.
Villainy comes in the form of the despicable police and their stature grows as the story hits a frenzy. The dialogue sparkles and I just loved it when the storyteller tightens the screw around the family. You want the worst to happen to them but you would also want them to escape the clutches of the law. Cat and mouse games ensue and the tables keep turning till I was tearing my hair off. The tension never lets up and it reaches a satisfying climax and a falling action scene that resonates with me emotionally.
“Crime never pays” is an unbreakable mantra for life. Georgekutty and his family may have gone off scot-free but are they truly free? This is a complete story, a perfect story, so when I got wind that Jeethu Joseph recently dropped Drishyam 2 on Amazon Prime I was wondering if lightning can strike the same spot twice; it can.
(Insert movie still for Drishyam 2)
Sequels are always tricky business. If done wrong it will feel like a cheap cash-grab exercise. You want to see a progression in a new story which has characters that you have loved. You want something strikingly new packaged in a familiar way. In that sense, Drishyam 2 is a dream come true. Jeethu Joseph really put this in the pressure cooker for 7 years, letting it simmered to the point of perfection. There is still one more tremendous story to tell.
Drishyam 2 begins with shots of a frantic man running on the night Georgekutty is burying a body. He ends up being a witness to Georgekutty on the night in question.
The story begins 6 years after the events in the first movie. A lot has changed in the sleepy town and Georgekutty has prospered. On top of his earlier cable TV business, he now owns a local cinema theatre. He is also realising his dream of producing a movie based on his story, but he is having a hard time convincing the script writer of his intended climax. The town isn’t as sympathetic as 6 years ago and the talk in the grapevine is that Georgekutty is definitely involved in the murder of Varun, the son of Inspector General Geetha Prabhakar (Asha Sharath). Meanwhile, Georgekutty and his family live in constant fear the investigation will reopen and at this point their eldest daughter Anju suffers some kind of a post-traumatic condition which will get triggered by memories of that fateful night and the presence of the police. Georgekutty also has new neighbours – Saba and Saritha, a couple who has a troubled marriage.
Jeethu Joseph employs the same slow burn narrative structure as the first movie and if you are a fan of the first movie you would already know he has all the cards up his sleeves. This time round there are potent foreshadows of what will eventually happen and it kept me on tether-hooks. I was all in for the eventual show-hand. Once a big reveal just after the hour mark dropped, my jaw was left on the floor and I think I only pick it up when the movie ended. This is a perfect marriage of fevered set-ups and emphatic pay-offs.
This was my first time seeing Mohanlal in action and he is one solid actor. I have seen Ajay Devgn in the same role in the Hindi remake and he is a steady presence but lacks an everyday man stature. Kamal Haasan in the Tamil remake is a stupendous actor. His final double-entendre dialogue with IG Geetha Prabhakar is in the top tier. I remember my wifey and I were teary-eyed in that scene. But Kamal Haasan is a showy actor and the movie always becomes about him. Mohanlal, on the other hand, is a subtle actor, almost Zen-like. His mien is a facade hiding all the gears in action behind his eyes, always finding little beats to define Georgekutty at every turn but never becoming stand-up-and-look-at-me showy. He’s completely in the moment in this movie, responding to each situation believably instead of sinking into the bland protagonist.
Drishyam 2 hits it out of the park with a relentless plot that is sheer heart-parked-in-your-mouth delirious stuff. It is more of the same, but yet much more because Jeethu Joseph came up with a screenplay that pushes the story and characters to new frontiers. The screenplay even has a field day playing with the climatic structure of movies and who else but Georgekutty who watches movies every day can write that ending. Never underestimate a man who loves his family more than himself. In my humble opinion, this is officially the first great film of 2021 and I can’t wait to see the eventual Tamil and Hindi remakes. Interestingly, there is a listing for Drishyam 3 in IMDb. Looks like there is still one more story to tell and I can’t wait.
Written by Daniel Chiam
BookMyShow Singapore 
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