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Join UsStar Cast: Fahadh Faasil, Roshan Mathew, Darshana Rajendran, Amalda Liz, Saiju Kurup, Maala Parvathi, and Kottayam Ramesh
Director: Mahesh Narayanan
Available On: Amazon Prime Video
What’s Good: There’s Fahadh ‘the’ Faasil, Roshan ‘talks with his eyes’ Mathew and a nerve-wracking plot. Do you need more reasons?
What’s Bad: The depth that seems to be missing at places. Maybe it is because we are still not comfortable with the format.
Loo Break: I gave you reasons above if you still can’t control, better take one.
Watch or Not?: WATCH! Even amid the pandemic, a team of skilful artists have come together to entertain you with quality content. You cannot give this one a side-eye.
User Rating:
A young man Jimmy (Roshan) falls for a virtual friend Anu who he meets through a dating app. Events bring the two together, just so Anu (Darshana) could disappear one fine day. The quest for the lost love and her identity leads Jimmy and his cousin Kevin (Fahadh) to a shocking revelation.
PS: C U Soon is entirely shot on the phone amid the pandemic with all guidelines followed.
C U Soon Movie Review: Script Analysis
Not comparing or turning any of the two down, C U Soon gets inspiration from a 2018 film Searching. The premise of searching for a lost one remains the same, but the stories & dynamics are different. C U Soon connects people, (slash that), screens to create a story that is fulfilling and moving.
Writer-director Mahesh Narayanan puts off an alarm for us to realise how much the digital ecosystem has sucked us in. For example, the film opens up to Jimmy (Roshan Matthew) creating his Tinder profile. Breaking the standard form of cinematic introduction, Narayanan introduces him through his phone screen. This is an instant reminder of the numerous people we have just known through our phone screens and their various social media profiles.
Narayanan does a terrific job in layering this universe. You know the country it is happening in, but the landscape doesn’t matter, because the ground for this story is the screens. Though confined, the story moves from love to bonding to conflict to quest to realisations and everything EVERYTHING is through either video calls between two characters or text chats.
That brings me to the point that bothered me a bit, which is depth. Now, emotionally the depth in C U Soon is only through the characters starring at their phones or computers or various other digital devices. Practically, the depth is only the confined spaces of the screens. In this case, a cinemagoer used to the usual format is left with questions. In this case, how does Anu get a phone in those circumstances, why is no one observing her while she is talking to a boy almost throughout the day?
But again, this might be because it may take a few more such projects to align our movie watching algorithm with the format.
C U Soon Movie Review: Star Performance
Fahadh Faasil is an artist way beyond my validation. For that matter Darshana Rajendran and Roshan Mathew even. It is a tough job to emote the feelings just looking at your phone screen. And when that screen itself is the window, your vulnerabilities as an artist is in ×100 zoomed display.
But these three ace their parts. Fahadh being all restless hacking layers after layers of Anu’s personality, while we just get to see him looking at the screen (us) is perfect. Roshan Mathew leaving aside all his vanity and letting his mole shine gets the most tricky scenes, and the man knows his craft.
Special mention to Darshana for playing a character as secretive as Anu. You aren’t entirely introduced to her like Jimmy. There are layers to her. As much as love her smile holds, it also has seen sufferings, and Darshana impresses with her range.
C U Soon Movie Review: Direction, Music
C U Soon is ultimately an experiment, one loose end, and the castle collapses. Mahesh Narayanan knows this pretty well. In his direction, he takes things slowly, lets you breathe with this new idea. There’s a scene where Anu plays the guitar for Jimmy over a video; it’s relatable. There is no makeup, so to so their hair is ‘normal’. Narayanan knows his content and what he needs to execute it.
Music by Gopi Sundar creates the much-needed crescendo. Notable credits to cinematographer Sabin Uralikandy and Narayanan (who has also edited his written and directed film). It is in itself telling stories. Apart from the primary plot, cinematography takes you to the confined spaces that define these characters. Fahadh’s messy room, Roshan’s immaculate kitchen are a base well set.
C U Soon Movie Review: The Last Word
Humans are capable of producing art even when put in the most challenging times. C U Soon and various other projects shot in the limitations of the pandemic are glaring examples. While it does leave you with a void, C U Soon will make you realise how much we have summoned ourselves to the Digi sphere. Watch it; you must!
4/5 Stars (Four Stars)
C U Soon Trailer
C U Soon releases on 01st September, 2020.
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