Meesha, in Malayalam, directed by Emcy Joseph, is like one of those Japanese dolls-within-dolls figurines that you keep opening as smaller and smaller dolls emerge from its womb…
In this case, as you open the doll, nothing emerges. The promise of layered secrets is never fulfilled. You are left watching a film high on promises,low on delivery.
The main plot about two “fast” friends from difference castes(the caste system prevails more in South Indian cinema than in any part of real India) Midhun (Kathir) and Anandhu (Hakim Shahjahan) and their affiliation to a nasty politician(played by director Jeo Baby) is so hackneyed, it seems writer-director Emcy Joseph took a sharp U-turn from the main plot and introduced the very talented but terribly typecast Shine Tom Chacko as swarmy hunter Kitho whose journey into the forests parallels Midhun and Anandhu’s incendiary togetherness; and I do mean that literally, as there is a lot of fire erupting around them to remind us how dangerous their journey is.
The blizzard of conflagration is never more than a blur. The two parallel plots remain stubbornly bifurcated. The entire prolonged film seems like two half-finished narrative pitches trying to find a common ground. While failing miserably in doing so, Meesha does offer some interesting plot points.
What may hold your attention for a bit—and this is just a longshot—are some of the performances. Kathir as the reckless devil-may-care Midhun does what Sunny Deol did in Ghayal and Arjun: cock a snook at the rules of civil existence. Midhun’s allegiance to the corrupt politician has nothing new to offer. But Kathir manages to bring some fresh energy into a hackneyed plot.
The female characters are sketchy to the point of being non-existent. A bison gets unreasonable prominence as the hunters become the prey in this weirdly unfinished film which wants to tell us something, though we don’t know what.
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