Identity

There is a 10-minute-long sequence in Identity, in which an important character explains a medical condition called prosopagnosia—a rare cognitive disorder where damage to a particular part of the brain affects the patient’s ability to identify faces. The scene itself is loaded with exposition, almost like a TED Talk, but it is effective in explaining the condition of the film’s most important character. As a detail, it sounds just about right to make the character appear mysterious, vague and, of course, human. But on a screenplay level, it forms a solid base to explore the unreliable narrator trope—where the only person whose observations matter, is the one who cannot be relied on at all.

Identity sets off as a film about Haran Shankar (Tovino Thomas), a boy with an abusive father, who turns him into a perfectionist with obsessive-compulsive disorder. As we expect the film to be about this eccentric personality solving cases, we are thrown into a story of a serial rapist, who blackmails his victims with videos of the crimes. When we think it is going to be about nabbing this criminal, he gets killed by an unknown person (we instantly know who it is). Alisha (Trisha), the witness of the crime, gets a peculiar disease called Prosopagnosia aka face blindness, due to an accident right after witnessing the murder, which renders her incapable of recognising faces. Now, we settle for a concept film about this person with face blindness trying to identify the killer with the help of Haran, who also happens to be a good sketch artist (thanks to his mom). But no. Identity is neither that. It keeps turning into a different film every 20 minutes. You have a gripping flight sequence where Haran tries to stop a collision. Later, we also get an enjoyable Bondish fight sequence in a private jet. Clearly, Identity has an identity crisis.

If someone were to narrate the story of Identity, directed by Akhil Paul and Anas Khan, chances are that halfway through, the person will get lost in a maze of complicated side stories. It need not have been that way, for at its core, there is a fairly interesting and mostly uncomplicated storyline which holds up the film until the interval point. After that, one can witness the screenwriter being acted upon by the pressure to keep the audience guessing. For, by the halfway point, we almost get an idea of all the principal players and there is little left to uncover. It is at this point that the tedious work of the writer begins, building up elaborate plotlines for the villain’s true intentions and the hero’s real identity (which reminds one of such surprise reveals in quite a few other movies). Several of these plotlines are convoluted. It would require immense amounts of patience to untangle all the motives of the multiple villains in the narrative.