Ponman

Ponman seems like a silly title for the film this turned out to be. The title translates to ‘kingfisher’, but it’s also a play on the phrase ‘pon’ meaning gold and man, because it’s about a man who deals in gold. By the end of the film, though, one might find other reasons to justify this title, but to begin with, you understand that it’s referring to the character played by Basil Joseph, a strange character named PP Ajesh. Going by the term the film uses, he runs what is called a “Madiyil Jewellery”, the kind of mobile jewellery in which the gold, literally, ends up on your lap. I’m not sure if this business is specific to Kollam, where the film is set in, but from my understanding of the trade, Ajesh is a broker who supplies gold to brides right before they get married, expecting to be repaid using the money they earn in the form of gifts during the wedding. It’s a peculiar practice, something many of us will discover as we watch Ponman. It is also ideal as a plot device in a film that talks about dowry, that too within the fascinating Latin Catholic community of the region. So, when we first meet PP Ajesh, he’s supplying 25 sovereigns of gold to a bride named Stefi Graf (Lijimol Jose), a night before she gets married to the “big, mountain-like” Mariyano (Sajin Gopu).

If one has to go on a quest to find why the Malayalam film industry is consistent with churning out good cinema, the journey will end with the secret alchemy of finding stories from the people. Lijo Joseph’s Angamaly Diaries is about Angamaly. Maheshinte Prathikaram provides a gorgeous landscape of Idukki, and so does Idukki Gold. Manjummel Boys is, well, about the resilience of the boys from Manjummel. Malayalam writers don’t make stories but end up finding them around. Ponman, written by GR Indugopan and Justin Mathew, is yet another story about everyday people in the port city of Kollam. The story, the conflict, and the stake of Ponman are small. But the film leaves one pondering about big things of human resilience, grit, and ethics–typical of good Malayalam cinema. The film’s protagonist PP Ajeesh (Basil Joseph), has a rather unique and risky business called Madiyil Jewelry or Walking Gold. Ajeesh sells gold upfront to families who are struggling to come up with dowry themselves to marry off their daughters. After the wedding, the families pay him off with the gift money. The conflict in Ponman arises when Ajeesh lends 25 sovereign gold to the family of Steffi (Lijo Mol Josse), but her useless brother Bruno (Anandh Manmadhan) and hapless mother only make half the amount to pay back. With Steffi’s husband being a short-fused ruffian from a notorious area of Kollam, Ajeesh ends up in a do-or-die predicament to retrieve his gold.

First impressions can be hard to change, but in Ponman most of our initial assumptions about the characters turn out to be wrong, as it happens in thoughtfully-written films. This change is not brought about by deceptive writing or staging of scenes, but it slowly gets revealed to us in the organic unravelling of the plot from one event to another. Nor is the change achieved through a quick whitewash job of characters we had judged harshly, but by consistently giving us those little pieces of information that would make us understand their actions in a better perspective.

Actor and director Basil Joseph has been on a winning streak. He opened his account in 2025 with a crime thriller, Pravinkoodu Shappu, and followed it with Ponman, which is a family drama with a tinge of suspense. Ponman is adapted from GR Indugopan’s novel titled Nalanchu Cheruppakar. And, it brilliantly captures the struggles of underdogs and how their lives are beyond materialistic things. Gold dealer PP Ajesh (Basil Joseph) lends 25 sovereigns of gold to Bruno’s family for his sister Setti Graf’s (Lijomole Jose) wedding. He signs an agreement with Steffi’s family that he will take the money that is gifted to the bride. If the money didn’t add up to the gold he lent, he would recover the jewellery to compensate. Bruno’s impulsive behaviour leads to fewer people coming to Steffi’s wedding and, eventually, they fall short of money.