"1 by Two" -- A Perfect Psychological Thriller (3.5/5)

In Short ...

VERDICT : Its not the kind of a movie where you go in groups and shout and clap after each scene. Rather its advisable to watch it in a silent crowd with full focus. Its a treat for all who could enjoy a dark psychological thriller !

In Detail ...

When was the last time you grumbled about lack of innovations in Malayalam movies, its usage of age old formulas and boring clichés over and over across the years .. Well I felt it all the time and often wondered why our directors are so afraid of experiments 

Today I seem to have got a clue. Here is this movie which I felt is the best (and probably the first) complete psychological thriller in Malayalam and even then just before the scheduled start of the movie there were a total of 4 people in the queue including me and my partner. We were standing there helplessly waiting for another couple of folks to join to make the minimum quota of six people required to start the show. All this on a weekend and within the first week of the movie. In the mean time the queue next to us was filling up in no time and no wonder its Allu Arjun's dubbed-to-malayalam mass movie 'Lucky' !!

Highlight #1 --> A different path
In my book one of the key quality of an ideal thriller is its ability to involve viewers as part of the movie and make them use their imagination as well. For instance in the case of Hollywood thriller 'Memento' you can find tons of articles online where viewers still discusses different possibilities , alternative endings and their interpretations of certain scenes. In our desi thrillers there is usually no room for such post movie discussions since the complete solution is often wrapped along with the puzzle. '1 by Two' gives enough space for the viewers to think and leaves certain points unanswered for us to fill. Kudus to the director for choosing a way less travelled in this part of the world

Highlight #2 --> Avoided distractions
Another area where our thrillers usually fails in the inability to avoid certain unnecessary distractions (read just-like-that songs, needless fights,  unwanted romance etc). But through out this movie there is hardly anything unwanted and out of context

Highlight #3 --> Performance
I remember actor Bharath Gopi once mentioning about the strain he used to puts towards the perfection of a role. I haven't seen much of Bhrath Gopi movies, but watching his son Murali Gopi I got a taste of what he meant. Murali Gopi's acting is undoubtedly brilliant, but more than that you can clearly feel the effort and dedication from the actor towards making the character(s) perfect. Not a lot of space for Fahad Fazil and Honey Rose and especially for Fahad the emotionally charged police officer role is merely a walk in the park. Special mention to Shyama prasad's 'natural' cameo as a psychologist 


Could have improved #1 --> Too much English

There was a disclaimer with justification at the start of the movie about the usage of languages other than Malayalam. But still one could feel that English is a little over-used especially in parts where it was totally unwanted

Tail piece -- <<< SPOILERS ALERT >>>

I could feel a strange resemblance of the movie with the last known psychological thriller in Malayalam 'Manichithrathazhu'. The way Dr Sunny justifies the super natural incidents with the power a person gets during the psychological 'role play' makes a lot of sense in this movie also. Also climax of Shobhana's Nagavalli can be compared with Murali's Pisharadi. How ever the major difference is that while 'Manichitrathazhu' focuses on humour in the first half and switch to thriller in the next, '1 by Two' chooses to stick as a pure psychological thriller pretty much through out !

Drishyam - 'A fresh and thrilling visual treat'

Any movie is built by placing a lot of pieces together. And the foundation for any great movie is usually a good story and a strong script. In Drishyam its foundation scores full marks and all other pieces like direction, acting, editing also comes out with flying colors

(+) Loved the 'realistic' theme : I always wondered about this unbelievable memory power of the characters in our typical crime thrillers who while questioned by police is able to recollect very normal incidents happened weeks back with the precision of date and even time. My brain hardly remembers a not-so-important incident happened day before yesterday, unless there is a real need to remember it. The director seemed to have read my mind and made a movie where the the central theme is based on this basic character of human memory, where the brain only retains the things that it feels is relevant and others are ignored unless its followed up with another connected incident. After watching a lot of movies with these characters of 'remarkable memory', one might feel it a little odd when 3-4 persons are not able to remember when exactly an incident happened only a few weeks earlier. But in in a real world this is more close to 'reality' !

(+) A detailed based director : I loved the works of Jeethu Joseph, right from 'Detective'. After an okeyish 'Mummy and me' and 'My boss' he is back, first with 'Memories' and now 'Drishyam'. The flow he maintained in the movie is beautiful, where he starts off with a  lite and pleasant first half to a roller coaster second half. The story, also written by him, is almost flawless and even the minute things are taken care

(+) Lalettan leading the show : What more should I say ? With such a strong script and direction, people will like the movie even if any other actor did the role of 'Georgekutty'. But can anyone else do this role as natually as our 'Complete Actor' did ?... I doubt it. Whether its a naughty romantic husband or a caring father or a tensed family man he was effortlessly living in those scenes. All others like Meena, Shajon, Asha, Siddique pitches in with key roles and good performance. Also a special mention to the two child artists who had a major role and did exceptionally well

(-) A little old-fashioned outlook : One can argue that the 'Georgekutty's' reserved outlook of "Women should be staying at home and should not be  going out" and 'Rani's' fear of "mobile converting you to naked photos" is due to the lack of education those characters have in the movie. But after watching the whole movie I got the feeling that the characters are talking a little bit of director's outlook. And if it is the case, I am a little against ths outlook, as I believe hiding or running away is not the solution for the social issue shown in the movie

Verdict : There are not many movies which is liked almost every one. Watch it not just for Lalettan, but for a refreshing attempt by a director who has a long way to go !

Tail Piece - For the one who already saw the movie (Beware of SPOILERs)
The movie leaves you with a more important question. When a girl's video is taken using hidden camera in a bath room which is later used to black mail her, the family had to do the extreme step which ended in beating the guy to death. Question is what can be done in such a case, especially when the culprit is a big shot (like IG's son here). A tough question to answer. May be in an ideal world following sequence can happen,

1) Girl will tell the boy to go and f##k off and do what ever you want with the video

2) Boy puts the video in youtube, but society instead enjoying the video and harassing the girl, will turn against the boy who defamed an innocent girl

3) Boy will be put behind the bars and girl will be commended for her courageous attitude

Now only question is, how far are we from this 'ideal' world ?