Janani K

That Mammootty is playing his darkest role yet is something that’s known to everyone who has watched Kalamkaval’s promos. With his amazing track record of pulling off diverse roles with different levels of complexity, what does Mammootty have up his sleeve this time to blow our minds? Sharing the screen with him is another beast of an actor, Vinayakan. Has Jithin K Jose’s Kalamkaval lived up to expectations and imagination? Let’s find out!

The initial frames of Stephen feature a young boy looking up at a giant wheel in awe. Soon, he begins hearing voices of his mother and father asking him to join them on the ride. And when he gets on the giant wheel, it spins. Watching director Mithun Balaji’s two-hour-long Stephen, you understand that the wheel never stops once it begins spinning. Stephen Jebaraj (Gomathi Shankar) confesses to the serial killing of nine women in six months. He surrenders to the police matter-of-factly. Michael (Michael Thangadurai) is entrusted with the job of finding the motive behind the murders. Helping him in evaluating Stephen is psychiatrist Seema (Smruthi Venkat), who, through her conversations with him, uncovers the truth behind the murders.

When the spunky Angammal (a brilliant Geetha Kailasam) rides her moped and delivers milk, there’s a spark in her eyes. The spark tells you that she’s leading life by her own rules. But when she’s forced to make certain lifestyle changes after her second son Pavalam (Saran) pushes her to, you see the vitality fading. It shows you how little things that made Angammal the fierce matriarch that she is are not acceptable to the generation that comes after hers. It shows how Angammal, the independent woman, is denied the choice. The choice that made her a flawed, foul-mouthed woman with her own ideals.

Watching director Sivaranjini’s Victoria, there’s a sense of familiarity in the everydayness unfolding on screen. Meenakshi Jayan powers through a tale of silent resilience while dealing with a busy day at work and personal struggles. And Victoria just did a wonderful job of showcasing an all-woman cast, with the men mostly appearing through video calls or through audio.

Comedy is tricky business, and to pull it off successfully requires an actor to tick off a huge checklist. One needs to have impeccable comic timing, sense of action and reaction, and spontaneity. Only a handful of female actors have been able to pull off a dark comedy, a niche genre in itself. Has Keerthy Suresh managed to score with Revolver Rita? Let’s find out!

Patriarchy has long served as a veil, obscuring women’s path to greatness. When Rashmika Mandanna’s Bhooma finally sheds her dupatta in ‘The Girlfriend,’ it’s more than fabric falling – it’s two decades of patriarchal conditioning unravelling. This deliberate act of stripping away the cloth – a constant element of her attire throughout the film – is a profound declaration of reclaiming her freedom and her rejection of the chains that once held her captive.

Jatadhara is an engaging, visually striking supernatural thriller that successfully merges commercial spectacle with artistic expression. It begins with a mythical narrative of how hundreds of years ago, with absence of banks or safe deposit vaults, when people used to store and hide gold and valuables beneath their homes to safeguard their hard earned wealth from dacoits. The introduction goes back and forth from the current day seminar on paranormal phenomenon and ghosts by the Indian Paranormal League where one attendee stands out declaring that he strongly believes that there are no ghosts.

How many of you have ever been in a relationship that might feel perfect, but the timing doesn’t let you pursue it? Do you revisit the relationship and think how life could have changed if you ended up marrying your partner? Or do you move on in life even if you don’t get proper closure? Director Prasanth Vijay’s ‘Ithiri Neram’ is a film that addresses all these and the societal judgement that comes with past lovers meeting for one last time. Will it be the last time?