Ullozhukku Movie Review : Urvashi's superb presence & range carries this beautiful emotional story

Story: Leelamma and her daughter-in-law Anju learn to look beyond betrayal to understand that true love is forgiveness and acceptance

Review: In how many ways can Urvashi show sorrow? The actress shows her tremendous range, ability to carry a film and screen presence in a story where she is largely required to be a grieving mother.

Written and directed by Christo Tomy, Ullozhukku is a film on emotional undercurrents with a metaphorical depiction that uses the flood situation in Kerala. This gives an empathetic resonance and tormenting atmosphere which complements the story.

Parvathy plays Anju, a young woman who is married off by her parents into a ‘good Christian family’, in an attempt to break off her love affair with a Hindu restaurant worker, Rajeev, played by Arjun Radhakrishnan. Now, her days revolve around taking care of her husband, Thomaskutty, who is incapacitated by a tumour in his head, alongside her mother-in-law, Leelamma, played by Urvashi.

While Leelamma talks about her younger days with her happy family, Anju is still trying to come to terms with her new house, in the backwaters of Kuttanad, and her husband’s illness. Her only relief is when she can manage to leave the house to meet Rajeev. But one day, she finds to her great distress that she is pregnant, with her lover’s baby, and to make matters worse, Thomaskutty dies, and the baby becomes the only ray of light in the grieving Leelamma’s life now.

As the two women struggle with their turmoil - one, having lost her son and the other, with the terrible secret of carrying a baby that isn’t her husband’s - and they are pushed into a situation where they are almost fighting for their survival, they start turning on each other. This is where the film loses its charm a bit.

Anju learns that Leelamma was not open about Thomaskutty’s illness when the marriage was proposed, and she is shown as a victim of the mother’s selfishness. But the audience doesn’t need to be taught to see Anju’s point of view by making the other look bad. Sometimes you don’t need justification for why people behaved the way they did. They were just two women driven by love. Will the two women learn to look beyond betrayal to accept that true love is forgiveness?

Christo’s choice of location and atmosphere is spot on. As the women wade through the water, we get totally caught up in the damp, dark mood. Sushin Shyam’s music and particularly Shehnad Jalal’s camerawork take it up a notch.

Urvashi is phenomenal as Leelamma, who is not only grieving for her ailing son and memories of a happier life, but also someone feeling defiant in the face of betrayal. Parvathy does that thing which she has always done so astonishingly well; she morphs perfectly into the character in look and feel, so that now you can’t think of anyone else in that role.

It seems to be a while since Malayalam has had a film driven by such emotional turbulence. It reminds one of ‘80s and ‘90s films directed and written by greats like Padmarajan, Bharathan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and MT. Ullokuzhukku is definitely a theatre movie, with a story that will leave you stirred and wiping away tears at the end.