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Join UsStar Cast: Mohanlal, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Meena, Kalyani Priyadarshan, and ensemble.
Director: Prithviraj Sukumaran.
What’s Good: It is one of the happiest films in recent times and though based on a sensitive subject doesn’t demand you to be on your toes all the time.
What’s Bad: It is too far away from reality and almost a fairy-tale for a movie that ventures into the real world time and again. Plus it forgets one of its most pivotal plot points only to be reminded in the end.
Loo Break: You can pause and take at any moment. There isn’t any mystery or suspense that will stop you.
Watch or Not?: Mohanlal’s camaraderie with Prithviraj is the soul of this movie that delves into the taboo territory but is quite far from reality. Watch it if you want to have some 3 hours of bliss your way, but don’t expect seriousness.
Language: Malayalam (with subtitles).
Available on: Disney+ Hotstar.
Runtime: 159 Minutes.
User Rating:
Eesho (Prithviraj) his father John (Mohanlal) mother Anamma (Meena) are the ideal family. Eesho falls in love with Anna (Kalyani) and are in a live-in relationship secretly in Bangalore. One fine day the two realise they are expecting. In the pressure to break the news to his family Eesho comes home and realises that his mother is expecting too. Begins the game!
Bro Daddy Movie Review: Script Analysis
The conversation around late pregnancy and whether it needs to be taboo kick-started with the release of Ayushmann Khurrana led Badhaai Ho. The movie turned out to be a three dimensional exploration of what it feels to be a part of the family with a lady expecting late in life. The reactions, first-hand embarrassment that they are subjected to and all that follows made the crux.
Prithviraj Sukumaran’s second directorial Bro Daddy finds its feet in somewhat the same universe. The movie features not one but two unconventional pregnancies and both that will make the heads turn in our so-called ‘pious’ society. But writers Bibin Maliekal and N Sreejith don’t shape their story like the successful Hindi movie. Rather they indulge more into the comic side of the whole ‘slip-off’ (as the father-son duo call it) . The focus is more on the dramedy of the situation than the gaze that the dynamic is about to get from the world.
For the major part of Bro Daddy that focuses only on the four leads ignoring the real world around them, the new approach works. No one is shocked to an extent the normal people would when they get to know that an aged woman is expecting and another is an unmarried mother. They do think about what people will think, but never enough to put them in tension. But these four are content and happy with their lives and their decisions, so what the world thinks doesn’t matter. The noise holds no importance and it’s pretty good.
While all of it works to an extent, the expectations from the audience to have the suspension of disbelief goes overboard when the movie ventures out of the houses these characters live in. The narrative makes these complex scenarios look easy like the world accepts them everyday. Never does anyone have any resistance to the situation that is created. Remember how the journey from embarrassment to finally accepting the reality lovingly was so fulfilling in Badhaai Ho? Or the terrific Surekha Sikri schooling her family with her amazing performance? Bro Daddy lacks that entirely. Of course there is a scene that sums up the journey for a stubborn character, but again, it all looks too vanilla.
On top of that, the movie for a very long period forgets that the mother Anamma is pregnant too and that her part of the story is equally interesting. The narrative is reminded of her in the climax but to no use.
Bro Daddy Movie Review: Star Performance
Mohanlal and Prithviraj’s bonding is the one true hero of this dramedy. The two actors play off each other’s energies and it looks like they are having fun doing the same. Both stalwarts of the Malayalam cinema induce humour in their performance and become instantly likeable from the word go. There is a unique charm both carry and that works in the favour of the movie.
Kalyani Priyadarshan is also a strong performer. In her limited presence she makes herself notice. Playing Mohanlal’s better half on screen now comes naturally to Meena. The actor has a nice screen presence.
Bro Daddy Movie Review: Direction, Music
In his direction, Prithviraj Sukumaran choses a more contemporary manner. He shoots his movie like a fairy tale set in some elite land where the naysayers are not even given the chance to speak. Works for the most part, but not entirely.
Deepak Dev’s music is beautiful and supports the story as it is expected to. DOP Abhinandan Ramanujan does a good job at capturing this modern world. The colour pallets used are interesting too. The spaces these people live in are also over exaggerated and that helps you to disconnect from reality.
Bro Daddy Movie Review: The Last Word
It’s a happy film and they are rare these days. But one cannot ignore the fact that it goes too fairy-tale after a point and you as a viewer have already seen the reality and can’t relate to the vanilla version.
Bro Daddy Trailer
Bro Daddy releases on 26 January, 2022.
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Fan of social dramas? Read our Jai Bhim Movie Review here.
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