Pavi Caretaker Review: When Survival Stories Thrive, Will Dileep Sail Through With This Comedy-Drama

Dileep in and as Pavi Caretaker is a collage of what the actor has been doing for the last three decades – with the mix of a little bit of comedy, a little bit of romance, a little bit of action, a little bit of agony and that boy next door who helps everyone. The actor, who is facing huge box office failure since the emergence of a sexual assault case, might find to sail through this time as well as the movie is not offering anything new to the audience to cling on.

The whole trope of the movie is a bachelor caretaker of an apartment in Kochi finding a ‘The Lunch Box’ (of Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur) type relationship with a roommate whom he never meets and develops feelings for her. In an industry,  where fresh and happening stories break box office records and lure audiences to theatres on a monthly basis, the makers must have thought over the theme as fresh and suitable for ‘story is king’ demand.

But after watching the drama evolves for some time, a viewer, with all the probability will lose the interest in Pavi Caretaker and his antics. Because it goes on and on for very long time and becomes irritating.

Again, there is one more reason for losing the interest: the thread and presentation has photocopies in many of Dileep movies.

He is Mr Butler, he is Kalyanaraman, he is Meeshamadhavan, he is CID Moosa, he is Unnikrishnan of Punjabi House, he is Babu of Joker and he is Unni of Thilakkam as you watch Pavi Caretaker start engaging with you.

Dileep, as an actor has not lost his touch, in fact he is in his most comfortable arena – comedy and romance.

Apart from Dileep, there are many other characters in Pavi Caretaker, especially many women characters. But, as the movie threading mainly through Pavi, their significance remains not so effective.

There are some nice songs in the movie, but set in wrong timings. This may be the return of Dileep after Keshu Ee Veedinte Nadhan to attract the family audience, if they are ready to come back to theatres after the actor lost them years back. Because, this movie has some elements that can take this section of his erstwhile fan base to the theatres.

What Dileep is lacking is purely stories and redemption. Bandra and Thankamani should have given him some wisdom. It seems like the actor, who was once part of movies like Gramaphone, Kathavasheshan and Calcutta News, does not want to move away from his mass hit genre and, knowingly or unknowingly keeps him away from the experimental wave in Malayalam’s new generation movies those generate both box office and critical appreciation. This writer’s understanding is that the actor is tactically avoiding the group of moviemakers who engage in change or vice versa.

Pavi Caretaker is watchable if you had liked golden performances of the superstar in his comedy flicks and romance dramas. If you are planning to watch the movie expecting a change in Dileep’s movie choices, better not waste your money or watch at your own risk.