Tusshar Sasi

Senna Hegde’s Avihitham opens with the tagline “Made in Kanhangad.” Where is Kanhangad? And what makes anything made there special, let alone a film? For those who discovered Malayalam cinema during the lockdown, the state might seem like a uniform patchwork of modern ideas and shared sensibilities. Avihitham, which examines adultery, is steeped in its local dialect, landscape, and cultural texture. It can very much amuse someone from Kerala’s Kottayam or Kollam despite never being a utopia. What remains universal here, though, is the social morality that thrives on exposing a “fallen woman,” teaching her a lesson, and eventually discarding her.

Indian folklore is full of mythical beings. Some shapeshift, some have terrifying fangs, some are into blood-sucking, and almost all of them fly. In some mythology-linked stories, these beings that once appeared in novels and comics are now popular again as superheroes, following in the footsteps of their Western counterparts. In Aditya Sarpotdar’s Thamma, the creature community in focus is of the vetaals who reside deep within the jungles. They have a large army of both good and evil individuals who are sworn to either protect or destroy the human race.

In recent years, Malayalam cinema has produced several police stories that look beyond their heroic surface. From the era of Suresh Gopi’s Bharath Chandran IPS, the template has shifted to more grounded portrayals, with filmmakers exploring the brutal, vulnerable, and helpless sides of police officers. Ratheena’s Paathirathri belongs to this newer breed, focusing equally on the personal lives of its cops. Set in Anakkara, a village in Kerala’s Idukki district, the film revolves around an unforeseen event that takes place at midnight.

Imagine two women in a lonely house with a large yard that benefits no one else. Would the authorities care about their two votes? In Sajin Baabu’s abstractly titled Theatre: The Myth of Reality, this is how a discussion unfolds among locals in Kerala’s backwaters as they talk about the isolated lives of a spinster named Meera (Rima Kallingal) and her mother Sharadamma (Sarasa Balussery). Their lifestyle is peculiar and far removed from the mainland. In the agriculture-based ecosystem they’ve built for themselves, the duo is surrounded by a serpent temple (kaavu) where a prayer must be performed every day.

It’s 2025, and Bollywood is still peddling the trope of two youngsters pretending to be lovers just to make their exes jealous. Shashank Khaitan’s Sunny Sanskari Ki Tulsi Kumari is a remake of a remake of a hundred other remakes. And no, it’s not a spoiler to say Sunny will end up with Tulsi. So how do you sell it? Shoot a string of glossy music videos and hope nobody notices the lack of effort.

There’s a long stretch, or one that feels long, in Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound, where the leading men, Shoaib (Ishaan Khatter) and Chandan (Vishal Jethwa), aren’t talking to each other. They’ve fought; one hit the other over a competitive exam result where millions appeared for a thousand odd vacancies. Shoaib is Muslim, Chandan is Dalit, both from the working class with zero privileges. And once the men reunite, it is as if sunshine returns to the film. That is the power of screen friendships, I guess. Thanks to my newfound obsession with Sholay, I could not help drawing an unlikely parallel: this duo is the Jai–Veeru of our times.

Most of us grew up with elders who constantly chimed, “Do not waste food.” On one hand, it was the sentiment that a wasted serving could have fed someone poor. On the other hand, they knew the effort it takes to harvest a basket full of cauliflowers or tomatoes. Having grown up (and past these ideas), we now casually discard food if the preparation isn’t to our liking. But where do the raw materials come from? After all, a typical Indian dish requires ten ingredients, including oil. In Subhash Kapoor’s Jolly LLB 3, we take a riveting trip down those lanes – into the thankless lives of Indian farmers, steeped in poverty and systemic neglect. As we know, Jolly LLB 3 is a franchise film where a not-so-smart lawyer (Arshad Warsi and/or Akshay Kumar) takes on the system and earns justice for a needy person or community. Also, the guys share a common name. Jolly No. 1 (Arshad Warsi) and Jolly No. 2 (Akshay Kumar) practice in a Delhi court, and their squabbles over hijacking each other’s clients are a running joke.

A pair of identical twins with clashing personalities, a perplexed mother, an absent father, a lover who’s a dancer, and a snake-like villain. No, this isn’t the setup for a ’70s masala potboiler. It is Anurag Kashyap’s latest directorial, Nishaanchi. And why not? If anyone outside of Farah Khan can claim to be a true disciple of the Salim–Javed brand of Bollywood masala, it’s Kashyap. The difference is that Kashyap didn’t grow up in town-side Bombay. His films, including this one, carry the flavors of the heartland while staying rooted in Bollywood idioms. Despite kitsch not being his forte, Nishaanchi is his most formulaic film since Mukkabaaz. The question is whether his 2-hour 56-minute gamble pays off.