Christy Review - Crashing Bore!

Ashwin Ram

Christy is a Malayalam language light-hearted drama starring Malavika Mohanan and Mathew Thomas in the lead roles. The film is directed by debutant Alvin Henry. Music is scored by our very own Govind Vasantha.

Premise

Mathew Thomas who is weak in studies joins for tuition classes conducted by Malavika Mohanan. The boy falls in love with the teacher, and what happens in their lives after he opens up about it to her forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction

The setup is fresh and the core concept is still an interesting one despite being viewed in similar circumstances. Immature love over school teachers is very common and it would have happened in most of our lives, it is bound to be a relatable flick at least on the basic level. Initially hints to be promising, but the proceedings are bland till the pre-climax. The drama is so stagnant and there are no major conflicts to grip the flow. Leave out the supporting characters, even the leads are very weakly portrayed as the writing is so empty. Despite being a straight narration and the focus being only on two characters, the situations don’t carry any sort of depth, that includes even the most crucial plot-point of the film. Many scenes are abrupt throughout due to the storytelling jumps. The disinterest is evident, but there is no clear-cut clarity on what exactly is going on in the heroine’s head at most places. Already there is nothing interesting happening in the story, to make it worse, the pace is slower than a tortoise, which leads to huge boredom. Shows kindness to the audience by offering a little bit of tension towards the end.

Performances

Mathew Thomas is tailor-made for his role and he has done an impressive job by being as natural as possible, also his emotional performance in the climax is clap-worthy. Malavika Mohanan was hugely trolled for her acting in Master and Maaran, her work is neat here as she maintains a harmless presence throughout, but she couldn’t give life to her character. The rest of the artists and supporting characters have no scope.

Technicalities

Govind Vasantha’s music is the backbone of this flick. Melody songs are good, Paal Manam excels. Background score is soulful in every single scene and he has valued and trusted the film a lot more than anyone else. Rich camera work that keeps the visual momentum alive, hard work in location hunt is visible on-screen. Editing is indeed a collective decision, but who else could be blamed for locking the runtime to 140 minutes when the substance is not even fit to be 40 minutes long.

Bottomline

Feels like a perfect short film content stretched too much to become a feature. The idea is curious, but it isn’t enough. Spineless screenplay, dull dramatic elements and lengthy runtime ruins the show.

Rating - 2/ 5