At a crucial juncture in the film, David Abel Donovan (Suresh Gopi) states in a commanding manner, “Her voice must be heard here, now.” Ironically, in a film seemingly centred on Janaki, a woman seeking justice after a traumatic assault, her voice is often drowned out by the grandstanding of men around her. JSK: Janaki V v/s State of Kerala positions itself as a socially conscious legal drama, but what unfolds is a muddled film that seems more invested in delivering rousing speeches than delving into the emotional truth of its protagonist. Directed by Pravin Narayanan, the film arrives following a minor controversy around its title, with the CBFC objecting to the use of the name 'Janaki'. Ironically, it opens not with Janaki’s story, but with an animated prologue tracing the childhood and rise of David being a righteous lawyer. It is an odd choice for a film named after a woman survivor, immediately shifting focus to the man who will eventually become her champion in court. We are then introduced to Janaki (Anupama Parameswaran), an IT professional who is back in Kerala on a short trip. One night, she is sexually assaulted by an unknown man. Drugged and unconscious during the incident, she cannot identify her attacker. What follows is a protracted and often convoluted narrative of legal dead ends, performative remorse, and the slow arrival of justice, almost by accident.

Director: Pravin Narayanan

Cast: Suresh Gopi, Anupama Parameswaran, Madhav Suresh, Divya Pillai, Shruthi Ramachandran

JSK tries to walk the tightrope between commercial courtroom drama and issue-based storytelling, but stumbles in both arenas. For one, its politics feel confused. Janaki is repeatedly reduced to a figure for others to fight over rather than being an active agent of her own narrative. She is sidelined not just by the system within the story, but by the screenplay itself. Even in scenes supposedly about her pain, the camera lingers on the reactions of those around her. At times, the film seems to forget she exists altogether, bringing her back only when convenient for dramatic effect. The central courtroom figure is David, who initially represents the accused in Janaki’s case. Suresh Gopi plays him in a manner reminiscent of his 1990s persona, with booming monologues, theatrics and punchy lines, but this performance style feels dated. His fiery oratory occasionally earns applause in the theatre, yet very little of it rings emotionally true. A dramatic flashback about wild boars and moral ambiguity tries to provide David some philosophical weight, but it mostly adds to the clutter. Anupama's performance is serviceable, but never quite rises above the film’s underwritten portrayal of Janaki. The middling background score by Ghibran also tries too hard to add drama and intensity.

Among the more confusing threads in the first half is the character of Naveen, a man Janaki meets randomly at a railway station when she is trying to contact her father. He accompanies her to the police station and later becomes a quiet supporter in her life. There is a moment when his sister Saira (Divya Pillai) asks if he knew Janaki from earlier. He does not reply, and we get a few shots of him looking up Janaki’s social media, but nothing is ever properly followed through. This vague implication of a past connection adds nothing meaningful to the plot, and the thread fizzles out entirely. Madhav Suresh, who plays Naveen, is terribly miscast in the role, coming off more awkward and unintentionally hilarious in a film that demanded a certain seriousness. JSK’s second half further loses its grip on plausibility and tone. What begins as an intimate legal drama gradually shifts into theatrical territory, where courtroom logic is stretched and character motivations become increasingly difficult to believe. Emotional beats are often mishandled, and some stylistic choices, like an out-of-place jump scare, only add to the unevenness. Shruthi Ramachandran's character Niveditha enters the film towards the end like a deus ex machina. Unlike the other incompetent supporting ensemble, she aptly brings a quiet strength to the role, playing a pregnant lawyer with composure and conviction, her performance standing out in contrast to Suresh Gopi’s theatrics.

One of the most jarring moments arrives when David, now fully commanding the courtroom, argues that the state should assume the role of the "father" to Janaki’s unborn child. It is clearly meant to sound radical, but instead lands as tone-deaf. Rather than centering Janaki’s voice or agency, the statement turns her trauma into a tool for David’s trumpeting. The complexity of her experience is reduced to a rhetorical gesture that feels more self-serving than compassionate. As the film nears its climax, it attempts to offer a sweeping commentary on justice and accountability. The case, reframed as Janaki versus the State of Kerala, is presented as a "landmark" ruling. Yet the final moments feel detached from the emotional core of the story, with Janaki herself largely absent from the decision-making. The film also makes a weak attempt to tie its events to a larger message about justice. In a voiceover, David muses that when courts fail to hear the voices of the innocent, it is often the fault of flawed investigations. By this point, the sentiment feels hollow, arriving far too late in a film already weighed down by meandering storytelling and inconsistent tone.

JSK had the potential to be a layered legal drama that places a woman’s fight for justice at its heart. Instead, it becomes a vehicle for old-school heroism, overwritten courtroom battles, and a strange obsession with moral grandstanding. It does raise some important questions about the complicity of institutions, the limitations of evidence and the invisibility of survivors in the justice process, but those questions are often shouted over by the men fighting around her. For a film titled Janaki V v/s State of Kerala, Janaki rarely gets to fight her own battle. And when others fight it on her behalf, they do not always do her justice.