Life is Beautiful

By Ravi

Story, Screenplay, Dialogue, Direction : Fazil
Music : Ousepachan
Actors : Mohanlal, Samyuktha Varma, Geetu Mohandas, Innocent, KPAC Lalitha, Nedumudi Venu, Riza Bawa, Sai Kumar.
Rating : Good.

Vinayachandran scores over Kunhikuttan. This is the impression one gets after watching Mohanlal in action in Life is Beautiful, specially so after the controversial award that he got recently for his performance in Vanaprastham. Simply put, simple Manodharmam wins hands down over intellectual Kuttiveshams.

Life is Beautiful once again carries that stamp of Fazil all over it, being a charming little tale of a middle class couple told in a straightforward manner. There could be a few ruffles out of the blue, a few ripples on the calm surface, a short dangerous game of ifs-and-buts, but soon life would be back to being beautiful once again - is the moral of the story.

Vinayachandran (Mohanlal) and Sindhu (Samyukta Varma) are an ideal couple who are so fond of each other that the greatest thing that they love, according to their neighbours Nambiarettan (Innocent) and Shoshammetathi (KPAC Lalitha), is 'sex'. This is reinforced with a song and dance sequence with the couple in all kinds of costumes including those of a King and Queen of the MGR/Dr JJ kind.

To come back to earth, Vinayettan has just joined a reputed public school as a teacher of Malayalam. The fact that he wants to teach Malayalam is projected as a politically correct stand, which Vinayan promptly starts elaborating with his unconventional ways of teaching. Which, incidentally, includes taking the boys out to Mettuppalayam's Black Thunder and topping them up with Pepsi while singing a rank bad song! But, while he is packing them up with good, solid `knowledge', disaster strikes in the form of a nymph landed from Bangalore who is none other than Sindhu's sister and Vinayan's sis-in-law Bala, (played to devastating effect by Geetu Mohandas-yes, the same girl who appeared as a child artiste with Mohanlal in Onnu Muthal Poojyam Vare years back) who is trouble, man, real trouble.

We realize that, goodness gracious! Both Sindu and Bala are orphans and that, but for Vinayan compassionately marrying Sindhu (passion following later) only God knows what could have happened to them. Vinayan even let Bala study in Bangalore (a Fazil geographical fixation) and look at what she does! In Sindhu's absence (conveniently sent away for some vague survey), she tries to seduce Vinayan!

Vinayan dodges her advances with a learned man's skill and never succumbs to temptation. But the girl simply wouldn't take a `No' from Vinayan. The misery of his life is compounded by the attempted suicide of a student, who is caught between the autocratic ways of his father and the liberating ideals of his teacher; Vinayan is just about to lose his job and his senses. Then, he goes and does something very silly. The repercussions his unthinking action triggers off and the ensuing solution to his problems form the rest of the movie.

The film is held together by Mohanlal. He offers a brilliant piece of controlled acting with hardly any cliché in it and with no exhibition of misplaced histrionics. He is ably supported by Samyukta and Geetu Mohandas, with some brilliant cameo performances thrown in by Innocent and KPAC Lalitha. A song by Vijay Jesudas spells his quality while the other songs are eminently forgettable.

On the whole, there are yawning gaps in the story. Like this middle class couple suddenly acquiring a green Hyundai when Bala arrives, to the total absence of girl students in Vinayan's school while they are invariably part of the cultural programmes. The final feeling that Fazil projects is `good riddance to bad rubbish', which is not really being fair to Bala and which is not a healthy feeling at all.

For some time now, Fazil has been at the forefront of conjuring up dreams for the middle class of Kerala. One feels it is getting to be rather tiresome. Either he is sleeping or the audience is. How come the cash registers are still ringing?!

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