Abhilasham Movie Review: A perfumed tale of unexpressed love that never quite lingers

Abhilasham, directed by Shamzu Zayba, is yet another attempt to romanticise unexpressed love, drenched in nostalgia and the familiar scent of a premise we’ve seen before. Abhilash (Saiju Kurup) runs an attar shop and a courier service, but his real business is hoarding feelings for his childhood friend Sherin (Tanvi Ram), who has now returned—conveniently single with a daughter after her husband's death and oblivious to his lingering affections. If this setup feels a bit too familiar, that’s because it is. The film, scripted by Jenith Kachappilly, borrows liberally from similar plotlines, making you wonder if you’ve accidentally walked into a rerun instead of a fresh story. But hey, at least it’s under two hours long—small mercies.

Director: Shamzu Zayba

Cast: Saiju Kurup, Tanvi Ram, Arjun Ashokan, Navas Vallikkunnu

Much like Shamzu’s debut Maniyarayile Ashokan, Abhilasham, too, is perfumed with gloss—pretty to look at, but often lacking depth. The music swells, the camera lingers, yet the emotions never quite seep through. Now, there are brief moments where Abhilash’s unspoken love does tug at your heartstrings. Saiju puts his best foot forward, adding a dash of sincerity to his otherwise uninteresting character arc. And while the writing often fails her, Tanvi as Sherin delivers a graceful performance, bringing a semblance of depth to a character otherwise defined by obliviousness. Abhilash’s relentless pursuit of Sherin frequently borders on absurdity, and the film expects us to believe that a well-read, independent woman like her remains blissfully unaware of his affections. Given how much the story banks on her naivety, it’s hard to take her character seriously. There is, however, a brief moment of respite—towards the end, a conversation between Binu Pappu's character and Sherin injects a much-needed dose of maturity and introspection. If only the rest of the film had followed that path, instead of treating romance like a harmless high school drama.

The major conflict in Abhilasham arises when Sherin decides to courier 10 bottles of a certain attar available at Abhilash's shop to a friend abroad, which lands both Abhilash and Sherin in easily navigable legal trouble—deliberately complicated by Abhilash's best friend (Navas Vallikkunnu), also a lawyer, in an attempt to bring them closer. This friend character is the ultimate hype man—constantly gassing up his buddy’s one-sided love story as something extraordinary. Only, the audience hardly feels the same way. Instead of allowing romance to unfold naturally, the film leans on such forced plot devices to push its narrative forward. The screenplay tries to convince us that Abhilash’s love is unmatched; in reality, it feels anything but that. Instead of creating organic moments of romance, the film leans on unnecessary antics and predictable conflicts, including the ever-so-obvious Thaju (an unremarkable Arjun Ashokan), whose role is as predictable as it gets. And then there’s the ethical grey area of Abhilash’s questionable actions. The movie, in its attempt to be endearing, glosses over the fact that some of his approaches to winning Sherin’s love are borderline deceptive. Thankfully, the climax doesn’t justify his behaviour, which is a relief. But by then, the film has spent so much time indulging in fluff that any emotional payoff feels somewhat undeserved.

Overall, Abhilasham is like that one friend who tells a long-winded story just to get to a mildly amusing punchline. It knows what it wants you to feel, but the road to getting there leaves a lot to be desired. With a more organic romance and fewer forced comedic detours, this could have been a heartfelt love story. Instead, it’s an uneven, rarely charming, but mostly lifeless ride.