First & foremost, hope all of you had a wonderful Onam & managed to gorge a sumptuous sadya. Well I certainly did & am pretty sure that Onam 2020 will be remembered for years to come coz of the pandemic that has affected our lives significantly. The present scenario has made all of us adopt a new norm & even our film industry has been no different. Though the usual hype might not have been there but we still had three releases that hit the OTT platform in the past few days. Among them, the one that I was most excited about was Mahesh Narayanan's "C U Soon". The trailer was impressive & it was all the more awe inspiring as it was shot on iPhones.
Jimmy Kurien (Roshan Mathew) is a client executive working for a bank in UAE & in one of his searches for a companion in Tinder, he ends up meeting up with Anumol Sebastian (Darshana Rajendran). Both of them get fond of each other & within a span of few
days, Jimmy proposes to her despite the fact that they never met each other.
However, Anumol was skeptical about her family’s approval & circumstances that
unfolded subsequently made it evident that there were more to her than met the eye.
After the excellent “Take
off” in 2017, Mahesh Narayanan was back at the helm & takes on a host
of other responsibilities as well like story, editing and virtual photography. I’m
pretty sure that the last term would be something new for most of us (it
certainly was for me). Apparently, the movie was shot by the artists themselves
on iPhones & subsequently, Mahesh reworked on the visuals which according
to one of his interviews took almost 2.5 months while the shooting was
completed in 22 days. There is no doubt that format of the movie will create inevitable
comparisons with “Searching”, “Unfriended ” etc, but this one is unique
in its own way as Mahesh has chosen quite a few relevant issues &
realistically weaved the tension and emotional content into it. With a running
time of just 1 h 38 mins, this experimental venture does keep us engaged until
the very end. Though many would have expected (or preferred) a bit more
thriller element thrown into it.
There are three main characters in the movie and all of them have
given fantastic performances. After having seen Darshana play supporting roles
in a few flicks like “Virus”, “Koode” etc., it was a pleasant surprise
to see her in the main role & she completely justified it with a brilliant
act. Her emotional scenes were top notch & giving her ample support was
Roshan who has gone from strength to strength which is evident from the offers
that he has in his kitty. Whenever Fahad is part of a project, we can rest
assured that he would be fantastic & it wasn’t any different this time as
well. He portrays the character’s arrogant attitude as well the emotional side
with equal finesse. As for the rest of the cast, Saiju Kurup, Mala Parvathy have
done their parts aptly.
Verdict: Without a shadow of doubt, this is one of the best
Malayalam movies in recent times. Despite the experimental nature &
logistical constrains, I don’t think there is anything in the movie that appeared
hindered coz of that. With a tense premise (don’t mistake it for a thriller) &
emotional connect, it will endear to all the audience. In short, it’s a must
watch!!!
Rating: 3.5/5
Regards…Ben
I will watch
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