I booked this place on the net just to rant. Rant about what I hate, what I would like changed. But lately I have just been reposting from other blogs. So here goes….
If you have not figured it already, I am a mallu. Yup, Im a keralite/malayalee, from God’s own country. Yesterday I got some rare time to myself. I went out to watch a good malayalam movie: Diamond Necklace. Here are my thoughts on this.
It’s one of those rare nice, clean fresh movies which usually comes out as an experiment. It has it all: good script, humour, thrill, a little suspense, a positive message, beautiful picturization. And good acting. Yup, real make believe characters who speak real world dialogues. The kind a normal person would speak in the real world in similar situations. And the part I liked best: there are no superstars and no comic side kick. No Jagathy/Jagadeesh/Suraj Venjaaramoodu/Salim Kumar. I would watch any movie without them.
Dr Arun played fantastically by Fahad, lives a high flying life, enjoying all luxuries money can buy. He lives in high rises, drives swanky cars, enjoys night life and has a gang of like minded friends. His philosophy of life is “ I have no regrets about the past, I have no worries about the future. I live in the present”. Nice . Except that his flamboyant lifestyle in Dubai, which is the 20th most expensive city to live in, is raking up a high credit debt. His fellow doctor colleagues and specially his mentor Akka, (Rohini) advice him to change his lifestyle, but he manages to continue living on plastic, even gets an extension on his outstanding credit and flies home after getting them to lift his travel ban. Before this, he falls for Lekshmi, the new tamil nurse who has joined (Gautami) , and dreams of a new life with her.
Once home in Kerala, an opportunity to get rid of his debts presents itself. A marriage into a an affluent and rich family, with promises of a rich dowry, and new influential relatives.He falls for it, and marries Rajshree (Anushree), a village belle who lives in a small world of her own. But the day after marriage, he realizes that he has been taken for a ride. He realizes that the new extended family is actually in poor financial state, and he gets way little than what he had expected. Now he is expected to bring his new bride back with him to Dubai.
In Dubai, he loses his luxurious apartment, car and most of his friends. He has to adjust with some malayalee labour personnel in a labour camp, and each of his credit withdrawal attempts is rejected, leaving him with little money. He sees and opportunity and befriends and moves in with one of his tumor patients, Maya (Samvrutha), to temporarily alleviate the rent problem. And it is here that he sees her “Diamond Necklace”, the one which is referenced in the movie title. Both Lekshmi and Maya find out about his marriage, and he feels his has cheated them both.Now he is at crossroads with his conscience.
Maya is diagnosed with life threatening cancer, she is going to die anyway, and has no living relatives, except Akka. She would have no use with a diamond necklace. On the other had, his wife’s rich relatives and their expectations poses new problems. And of course, there is the bank who wants their money back. Arun decides to temporarily borrow (steal) the necklace, and to replace it with a duplicate replacement, pawn the real necklace, and thus buy in some more time for this debt problem. He steals from Maya at the hospital after giving he on extra dose of morphine.His conscience torments him every step of the way, because he knows he is a doctor stealing from his doomed cancer patient.
More problems. His naive wife discovers the necklace. And thinks this is his gift to her on her birthday. Even boasts to her relatives. Now everyone knows about the necklace. He cannot just pawn it.
It is at this juncture that he turns to Venu (Sreenivasan) for help and advice. Venu intervenes, and gets the bank to write off 40% of Arun’s, debt in the name of global recession. And also an 18 month extension on the balance debt. Exactly how this is possible is not explained. But that is not important. What’s important is that Arun no longer requires the necklace. He can replace the original back, and remove that terrible weight on this conscience.
While he was away, Maya had suffered the effects of morphine overdose, and the in-duty nurse at that time, Lekshmi, is fired. Also Maya, who has now learned the meaning of life, understands that she had no right in expecting a new life from Arun. She decides to leave, leaving her valubles, along with the necklace, to Arun and asks him to give it to his wife.
Arun now legally gets the necklace (which is actually the duplicate he had got made), along with the original. He gives the duplicate to his wife, and decides to help Lekshmi, who had big dreams of starting a hospital in her village in Tamil Nadu. He gives her the necklace, and asks her to sell it for the money she requires.
Maya is shown happy, and contended in life. She now lives in the present, and is shown travelling in India. In the final scene, Rajshree is shown oggling and fondling her necklace (she does not know it’s a fake). Arun asks her if she has ever loved him, more that the necklace. To prove her unconditional love to him, she casts the necklace into the sea.
There is some really nice and smart story telling here. Aruns dreams living in a house-of-cards comes down in an instant, and he has nowhere to run , as all of his friends ignore his request for help, or are in similar situations. He is genuinely a nice guy, spreads happiness and joy around. Stealing does not come easily to him. On the other had, Rajshree’s relatives take him for a ride and push him further into crisis. But he is not able to think straight and come up with a simple solution. Fahad plays this character convincingly.
Lekshmi, Maya and Rajshree are all different women with whom Arun has a relationship. Though he does not want to, he ends up hurting all of them at various points. I specially loved Samvrutha playing the terminally ill patient Maya. Her pain and suffering seemed convincing. And she looks gorgeous !
And Sreenivasan excels in another of his toned down characterization of a typical malayalee labor employee, who has been struggling in Dubai for 19 years. He represents knowledge, wisdom and trust in the movie. Maniyan Pillai Raju as the bank manager is another character I liked.
The song NIlamalare, nilamalare has been playing on my computer for 2 days now. Its melody and classical beats is a fresh departure from the usual malayalam soundtracks of these days.
The movies shows the dangers of not having a strong financial plan in life. It also shows how people make the wrong decisions in life when they are faced with problems and can’t think straight. Living in the present is not a good idea. You need to really plan out a future. Specially if there are others in your life who depend or look up to you. This is a message I feel the youngsters of this and coming generation need to imbibe. A movie with a similar message which came out last year was Ranjith’s Indian Rupee
It’s a must watch movie for all generations of cine goers. Don’t miss it. Its not everyday that you get to see a beautiful story told in a fresh manner on screen.
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