Seeing is thrilling

Nonika Singh

Cinema does many things to us, it inspires, entertains and thrills. But at times it can be a ready reckoner for tackling life’s challenges head on. So, here is chauthi pass Vijay (Ajay Devgn) who runs a cable business in Goa. What he does for a living automatically rubs on. Not surprising he eats, drinks and sleeps movies. Not just that he draws life’s lessons from movies that he consumes voraciously, even learns legal jargon and heavyweight terms such as habeas corpus. 

However, this premise alone is not what makes Drishyam, a rather unusual title for a thriller strikingly different. There is many a twist in this intelligent film that keeps you on the tenterhooks. Of course, it takes a while to simmer. However, despite its languorous start like a dish on slow fire it cooks up a savourful fare. Once done, it holds you in a vice-like grip. How barely literate Vijay educated by cinema and caught in an unwarranted situation hoodwinks the police forms the crux of the drama packed with several highs. And few lows! 

Rather, hats off to the director for weaving a maze around an unintentional murder. Even though it’s not a whodunit murder mystery, rather the killer’s identity is revealed early on, there are suitable tension, friction and frisson. Much of it comes from the face-off between Devgn and Tabu (playing an IG Mera Deshmukh). Tabu’s dabbang cop dare finds a match in her emotionally distraught mother act. As a police officer whose son Sam has gone missing in more than one scene we come face to face with the wondrous depths this actor is capable of plumbing. 

The only issue you can pick with the film is how loud music accompanies each time the subtle and nuanced actress makes her presence on the silver screen. Her finesse as an actor clearly clashes with boom boom, bang bang of the background score that announces her arrival (close to the interval) and trails all through. Yet, Tabu surpasses expectations which in her case, given her enormous talent, are never few.

But, yes the film belongs to Devgn, understated and effective. As the common man Vijay, ready to go to any length to save his family, he humanises his part with just the right inflections of tension and empathy. Actors cast as his family are suitable choices in a film that walks the grey area and where right and wrong are not moral choices but providential and circumstantial. The good and bad, lawful and illegal, who knows the line, who crosses it and who stands on the either side? Clearly there are no clear cut choices but an ambiguous whole.  

Besides, as the film reminds--do you get what you see?  After all, the film is not named Drishyam for nothing. It’s the visual that matters. Adding to the visual impact here is cinematography that brings out the melancholy and eeriness of the film. So, astute is the camera work that not even once does it allows Goa’s picturesque beaches to cloud the tenor.

Visual memories are the strongest, says Meera, and stay with us. While the film may not become a part of your cinematic memory forever, it won’t be easy to shrug it off easily either. As the film ends on a climactic, rather cocky note, as you walk out of the movie you wonder isn’t this kind of cinema one associated not too long ago with foreign films. Hey, before you get us wrong Drishayam isn’t a rip off of some angrezi film. But remake it sure is, of a Mohan Lal starrer Malyalam film with the same name. And for this reason subtract half a star. But original or not, nothing stops the film from being engrossing and thrilling.