Makal Movie Review: A good-bad parenting tale that's too simplistic

After Njan Prakashan, Sathyan Anthikad turns his attention towards much older and more responsible characters in his new feature Makal. There are several places in the film where we get the filmmaker's trademark humour. It is found in the silliest of circumstances, like the opening scene, for instance, when an unfortunate thief — or fortunate, if you think about what happens to him later — breaks into the wrong house where Juliet (Meera Jasmine) and her daughter Aparna (Devika) reside. It's a clever way to introduce two of the film's principal female characters who share a close bond.

Director: Sathyan Anthikad

Cast: Jayaram, Meera Jasmine, Devika Sanjay

But once Juliet's mechanic husband, Nandakumar (Jayaram), returns after leaving his job in Dubai, things change. It's not because he is a terrible person. It's just that Aparna thinks she and her mom wouldn't be able to enjoy the level of freedom that they did before. Things get more serious when Juliet finds a job, and Nandan is left to look after Aparna. Both parents reveal themselves to be open-minded by the fact of their inter-religious alliance itself. But Nandan is slightly close-minded when it comes to other things, like not warming up to the idea of his daughter keeping a pet (there is an adorable cream Labrador puppy in the film) or misconstruing the hug of a male friend. Juliet, on the other hand, understands the generational differences better.

Makal shares a few themes with Jayaram-Anthikad's previous collaborations, Veendum Chila Veetukaryangal and Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal. Nandan is like an extension of the automobile engineer-turned-mechanic from Veendum Chila Veetukaryangal. What if he left that job and started the business of manufacturing and supplying unsullied curry powder? There is also a callback to Achuvinte Amma, his previous collaboration with Meera Jasmine, where the latter played the daughter of a controlling mother. But, unlike those films, the central conflict in Makal isn't too serious. Its dramatic moments are relatively less weighty. You might even wonder whether Aparna's issues with her father warrant a cinematic treatment.

Iqbal Kuttipuram's script keeps things even lighter when Aparna's classmate (played by Naslen) reveals his romantic feelings toward her. It gets to the point where Makal begins behaving like a Hrishikesh Mukherjee film when Naslen impersonates somebody to impress Aparna's father. Anthikad manages to mine some hilarious stretches from the Jayaram-Naslen interactions.

I kept waiting for something crucial and more eventful to happen in the third act, but the detour that Makal takes is uninspiring. When the film introduces, in its third act, a Kannada-speaking character and his backstory, I found my interest slowly dwindling. Balaji Manohar, an actor with much potential who impressed me with his turns in the Kannada films, Nathicharami and Avane Srimannarayana, is wasted here as a character who — to put it vaguely — 'teaches' Aparna the difference between good and bad parenting. The whole portion with him felt unnecessary. Couldn't they have come up with a better way to make her change her mind?

So what's the takeaway here? That controlling parents are good and whatever they do is good for you? I understand we are talking about a movie character, but I found some of Nandan's actions disagreeable. In one scene, Meera Jasmine tells him, "You are supposed to be your child's friend, not their headmaster." I wished the film found a more sensible way to resolve the father-daughter conflict instead of relying on a bad soap opera-style ending. It leaves a slightly bitter after-taste. Being a huge Sathyan Anthikad fan, I expected from him a film with more meat on its bones.