Review: Oru Muthassi Gadha is worth watching

The director works as if he has a magic wand that makes this theme -- which is not exactly fresh -- engaging, raves Paresh C Palicha.

You know that Malayalam cinema is passing through a vibrant phase when you see a sexagenarian making her début and playing the central character in a film.

Oru Muthassi Gadha is directed by Jude Anthony Gadha, who made the successful Om Shanthi Oshana, and stars debutante Rajini Chandy.

Leela (Chandy) is a bitter old lady, who is against anything modern, and makes everyone's life miserable. She stays with her son Siby (Suraaj Venjarammoodu) and his family.

Siby's wife Jean (Lena) is portrayed as a good daughter-in-law and the epitome of tolerance while dealing with Leela.

No domestic help survives here for more than a few days because of Leela's acerbic tongue. Even the friends of her grandchildren are not spared.

These are just a few broad strokes to lay out the premise and everything unravels more interestingly on screen. The director works as if he has a magic wand that makes this theme -- which is not exactly fresh -- engaging.

The fact that such problems are a part of our domestic life and we just have live with them until they disappear by themselves is driven home convincingly. For example, the scene where Siby -- on his boss' suggestion -- tries to drop his mother in an old age home, but this solution just compounds the problem. 

Then enters Siby's mother-in-law (Bhagyalakshmi), who moves in to give the old lady company when the youngsters go on a vacation.

She teaches Leela that old age is not a time to be agitated to wait for death but is an opportunity to fulfill our innermost wishes. The film goes on to show how this knowledge transforms Leela.

The actors here are in top form.

Rajini Chandy, as the grand old lady, leads by example about what this film is trying to convey.

The others assist her well in this endeavour, be it Suraaj, Lena, Vineeth Sreenivasan and the director himself who appears in an extended cameo.

Oru Muthassi Gadha is worth watching.

Rediff Rating: