Secret Movie Review: Ambitious ideas botched by terrible execution

When SN Swamy's filmmaking plan was first announced, most Malayali cinephiles, particularly those from the '80s and '90s, were genuinely interested. After all, he is the brain behind some of our most memorable thrillers of those times, including the iconic CBI franchise, Irupatham Noottandu, Moonnam Mura, and Dhruvam. Though Swamy's writing genius has waned over the last decade, he is still prominent enough to generate a certain level of expectation. But as it turns out, his directorial debut Secret has done more harm than good to his already diminishing career.

Three friends, played by Dhyan Sreenivasan, Aparna Das, and Jacob Gregory, are on a trip to Thanjavur to attend a wedding when one of them suggests visiting an astrologer. Though Midhun (Dhyan) is initially hesitant, he gives in to his friend's compulsion and decides to get his horoscope checked. Midhun, whose wedding has already been fixed, is shattered when the astrologer tells him that the marriage will get cancelled because of the bride's death. Desperate to find a solution to ensure the prediction doesn't turn true, Midhun meets Mathews (Ranjith), a psychological professor, who heads a community called 'Believe in You'. Though Mathews doesn't have a foolproof solution, he manages to confuse Midhun (and us) by using complicated psychological and scientific terms like 'System of entropy', 'Second law of thermodynamics', and 'Synchronicity'. Finally, he comes up with a bizarre solution and he himself admits that there's no rationale behind it. The solution—Midhun has to save three people from dying to save his girlfriend.

'Believe in You'—this is the film's message. Along with unconvincingly exploring a bit of astrology, science, and psychology, SN Swamy tries to communicate the basic idea that self-confidence can help a man overcome any number of obstacles... but fails miserably to translate it on screen. It's more of a lecture where characters thrust the film's 'noble intentions' upon us with dialogues like, "The power of self-confidence is strange and surprising", "Athma vishwasam undenkil Yaman vere tholkum" (Self-confidence can even defeat Yama), etc.

From writing to direction to performances, Secret is a concoction of such amateurishness. The film has an abundance of gaping loose ends, which the makers try to tie up with the repeated usage of the word 'entropy'. Google defines it as a scientific concept that's often associated with disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. While one can understand the concept in a scientific context, it's not effectively conveyed in the film. All we see is the characters justifying every bizarre development in the narrative as 'entropy'. How does Midhun find himself amid a mob lynching? Entropy! How does Midhun randomly spot a car accident and rescue the passengers? Entropy! How come a roadside worker is carrying a kitchen knife, which comes in handy in the rescue? Entropy, indeed.

In his 734th release of the year, Dhyan doesn't bother sweating as he sticks to his stock expressions. SN Swamy seems to have opted for such a generous approach in handling his actors, which is evident from the performances of both the leads and the junior artists. A veteran like Renji Panicker is seen hamming his way through in a cameo role making it hard for us to differentiate if it was a serious or parodic performance. It also doesn't help that the dialogues are theatrical and totally out of sync with today's times.

Last time around, during CBI 5, when Swamy said the film revolves around a unique concept called 'basket killings', it invoked a lot of curiosity. But once the film was released, it turned out to be a damp squib. Similarly, Swamy promised to explore many high-concept ideas in Secret, which he called a "motivational drama". Unfortunately, the only motivation the film offers is to gather ample strength to sit through its entire runtime.