J Baby Movie Review: Urvashi saves an otherwise overly melodramatic film

A little past the intermission of J Baby, a police officer in Kolkata asks Shankar (Dinesh) and Senthil (Maaran) to call an officer in Chennai to place a complaint on Baby (Urvashi) for the ruckus she created. The scene cuts to a flashback montage of J Baby walking with a peppy background number, holding a yellow bag in her hand and swiftly moving around to get chores done — stealing letters from other houses, locking their houses without knowledge, creating ugly brawls wherever she goes and then justifying her actions. Urvashi has no business exuberating the level of sass she has and being this chuckle-worthy. But when the emotions hit, that is when J Baby becomes who she is.

Director: Suresh Mari

Cast: Urvashi, Dinesh, Maran, Kavitha Bharathy, Jaya Murthy, Shegar Narayanan and Ezhumalai

The film, based on a true story, starts when Shankar and Senthil are called to the police station to be informed that their mother has been found all the way in Kolkata. They are offered a lecture on what led to this situation and are warned to bring their mother back to Chennai. The brothers, who have had a bitter past, now have to join on an adventure for a common cause. The narrative then moves into a flashback, showcasing their turbulent past and how their family of five, including their mother, became the dysfunctional family that they are now.

Traversing to an unknown land, the brothers are forced to confront their repressed feelings and patch up, before returning home. The duo take the help of a local army officer while struggling to get food and grasp the language. Here’s where Maran’s one-liners work wonders. We also get to see a different part of Kolkata as they move around from buses, and trains to boats in search of Baby.

Urvashi’s performance stands as the towering pillar in J Baby. She goes around demanding people, calling former late politicians her ‘friends’ and even beats firefighters. Her performance beams through her soul and eyes, effortlessly carrying what it takes to pull off an elderly woman, who is struggling to find a crutch to hold onto. Her family already has their plate full and she constantly feels like she is a burden. It isn’t an easy feat to portray mental illness on screen, especially in old age. Baby, who suffers from dementia and bipolar disorder, is taken to what looks like a government hospital for treatment, and your heart sinks as the camera’s lens unveils the stark reality of such facilities in the current era. When a caretaker asks, “I hope you have given the right address as some people just leave patients here to be,” the weight of it crushes you
even more.

As much as Urvashi anchors this drama in a poignant and powerful way, the story moves away from its central focus and relies too much on melodrama to evoke emotions. As much as it highlights the trauma that Baby has undergone over the years, the camera goes a step further to show multiple pregnant women on screen, and puppies drinking milk from their mother, and adds emotional music wherever necessary. What starts off as a compelling film with potential quickly deviates into a story which is bombarded with moments rubbing onions on the audience’s eyes in every second scene.

J Baby’s tagline says ‘Baby’s Day Out’ but unlike the 1994 Hollywood classic, we don’t get to see much of Urvashi’s escapades, which would have added some much-needed rib-tickling humour in the film. This was something that director Nithish Sahadev deftly cracked in his recent Malayalam film Falimy, where a grandfather goes missing in Varanasi.

In the end, J Baby is more than a mother, more than a woman who showers love, more than an elderly person dependent on her kids during the last leg of her life, and more than a woman who keeps on giving. And we see that side of her only for sometime...