Janani K

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?

‘Aaromaley’ arrives at a time when Tamil cinema desperately needs light, feel-good romantic dramas. Directed by Sarang Thiagu and starring Kishen Das, Shivathmika Rajashekar, and Harshath Khan, this warm romantic entertainer offers genuine laughs and authentic moments that mirror real-life relationships. It carves out space for itself by focusing not on larger-than-life heroes, but on ordinary people navigating honest feelings.

A good murder mystery and investigation thriller depends solely on the stakes and the balance between hunter and hunted. The film is uplifted when the cop investigating the crime is shown to be equally brilliant as the killer he’s chasing. Vishnu Vishal’s ‘Aaryan’ is one such murder investigation thriller that relies on the brilliance of its characters. But the big question is, does it achieve this balance? Let’s find out!

‘Bhoothakaalam’ and ‘Baramayugam’ are two promising horror films that came from Malayalam cinema and also found their audience across the country. These two horror films in particular introduced director Rahul Sadasivan to the world, who, with his penchant for the genre, crafted two brilliant masterpieces that earned the love of the audience. Especially when horror has almost become a joke in Indian cinema, he is back with his third horror film offering, ‘Dies Irae’.