Bougainvillea Review - A Odourless Lovely Looking Flower!

Ashwin Ram

Bougainvillea is a mystery thriller starring Kunchacko Boban, Fahad Faasil and Jyothirmayi in the lead roles. The movie is directed by Amal Neerad of Varathan and Bheeshma Parvam.

Premise:

A major car accident occurs, post which Kunchacko Boban’s wife Jyothirmayi suffers from memory issues. Years later, she finds herself a potential suspect in a missing case handled by Fahad Faasil. The progress in the interrogation forms the remaining story.

Writing/ Direction:

The skeleton of the script has got that typical thriller formula, mysterious incidents followed by police investigation. The psychological approach by keeping the heroine on the center stage does the trick. The film doesn’t appeal with any exciting plot-points on the interrogation front, Jyothirmayi’s character is the driving force that brings a change in the screenplay pattern. The engagement is there, but not throughout, the factors in the world building are interesting in the initial hour, but the repetitiveness in the situations bores out and the flow becomes flat. The uneven writing in the flashback which lacks clarity further weakens the killer’s reasoning. The major weakness is, generally in whodunit genre movies, the audience will doubt a person and the twist will be on someone else, but weirdly here it is predictable, at least the main chunk of the storyline. Yet there is a fascinating touch to the revelation at the very end that is sure to please the viewers. Also the climax action is solidly taken and has that punch to it.

Performances:

Jyothirmayi gets an empathetic character to play and she has shown ample dynamism to put on a nailing performance. Kunchacko Boban is very casual and natural in his role, but his character deserved more variety with respect to his expressions for the changeover attitude. Fahad Faasil plays a composed cop role by letting go of his eccentric personality, the issue isn’t him being calm, the character by itself has no wow moments. Probably, an exchange of roleplay with Kunchacko Boban would have turned the tables upside down.

Technicalities:

Commendable music by Sushin Shyam, he uplifted many downers on-screen through his thumping background score. Anend C.Chandran’s cinematography is a quality value addition to the technical aspect, his visual presentation along with the artwork elevated the output. Vivek Harshan’s editing is too straightforward and the treatment demanded a tricky one which was nowhere there.

Bottomline

Psychological elements have been handled with care, but the thriller aspect is a huge disappointment. The male characters are written in an underwhelming manner, while Jyothirmayi excels in every single way possible.

Rating - 2.5/ 5