'Margam Kali will break some stereotypes'

Following last year’s Kuttanadan Marpappa, director Sreejith Vijayan is back with Margam Kali, which is said to be a colourful, family-oriented entertainer. Bibin George, Namitha Pramod, Gouri Kishan (of 96 fame), Surabhi Santosh, and Soumya Menon play the main characters while Baiju Santosh, Siddique, Shantikrishna, and Dharmajan appear in supporting roles.

Sasankan Mayyanad has penned the story and screenplay with Bibin George contributing the dialogues. In a conversation with Cinema Express, Sreejith says the film has a romance-driven narrative revolving around today’s Tik Tok, Instagram, and WhatsApp generation.

“We don’t claim to have made anything groundbreaking. It’s a simple film purely intended for entertaining the viewers for two hours,” he adds.

Though Sreejith had cast Kunchacko Boban in Kuttanadan Marpappa, he cast Bibin in his second film as he wanted the protagonist to be devoid of the trappings of a conventional hero.

“It is just one of the stereotypes that we are breaking with our film, the other one being the casting of actors aged above 50 as the protagonist’s friends,” reveals Sreejith. 

Elaborating further on the premise, the filmmaker says, “It is not just about the love stories of the principal characters but also those of its supporting characters, such as Siddique and Shantikrishna’s, or Hareesh Kanaran’s and his girlfriend’s, and so on. This sort of makes every character the protagonist of their own story.”

Sreejith is all praise for Siddique and Dharmajan’s performances. Their characters are expected to be some of the film’s major highlights. “I believe Siddique has delivered another noteworthy performance after Kodathi Samaksham Balan Vakeel. Dharmajan’s character, too, is not something he has tried before. He speaks with a deep voice, thereby creating a comic effect.”

Sreejith and team are hopeful about the film’s humour clicking at the box office. “These days, it’s a challenge to write comedy, especially since meme and troll creators are coming up with much better content. This makes me very envious of them even though I enjoy everything they do,” says Sreejith. He recalls how they had to alter some lines in the film after learning that someone else had already used a particular joke. “It happened while we were shooting the film. So we had to improvise and replace it with something else.”

The director also mentions an ironical situation which occurred after the release of the film’s trailer. “Someone made a Tik Tok video based on the trailer and it ended up getting more views than the trailer,” he laughs.

Margam Kali has songs composed by Gopi Sundar. Produced by Listin Stephen and Alwin Antony, the film will be releasing in theatres this Friday.