Kaathal The Core Review: Mammootty Dares To Do What No Other Megastar Would Do In India
Kaathal The Core is not an experimental movie for the makers and the megastar Mammootty. This is a natural progression for the ‘youngest’ star from Malayalam who has never shied away from testing waters with different genres of filmmaking. Kaathal The Core once again establishes the determination of one of the most successful actors in the Indian film industry to tackle burning social issues and present them with utmost conviction. After the powerful tale of women”s emancipation with The Great Indian Kitchen, what Jeo Baby is trying to portray in this movie is one of the most (still) controversial subjects, and he emerges successful with convincing mastery.
This is a fact (spoiler alert) that no other megastars from the Indian film industry would handle a movie like Kaathal The Core today. Homosexuality is not an easy topic for a megastar with the stature they possess and the commercial prospects each project they helm entails. However, Mammootty, still in his prime, did the unthinkable. Like the director, he also emerges victorious as the movie approaches the end credits.
Though the movie is produced and led by Mammootty as the protagonist, the story is about Omana Mathew (the wife of Mathew Devassy, portrayed by the perfectly cast Jyotika) and her struggles to find freedom from unwantedness in a married relationship. Kaathal The Core has a slow pace, and this pace defines the depth of the characters as the movie progresses. The movie begins with little details and spatters the major conflict with controlled conversations and scenarios in the first half. Then, the movie enters a realm where the writers (Adarsh Sukumaran and Paulson Skaria) and the director want the audience to be present. There, the viewer is left with no choice but to like all the characters.
The pride of individuals and the general anathema of society to accept homosexuality are the main themes of Kaathal The Core. Pride denies a father from accepting his son as homosexual and compels him into a married relationship, believing that the process will “cure him.” Pride and the status of an aristocratic family deny a woman a proper married life as the father and son continue with the arranged setup for almost 20 years. Then she decides to end the married life and declares it with a divorce petition and, quite literally, a dialogue at the end – “I can’t take it anymore.”
The insights the movie throws into the social acceptance of homosexuality are a bit grey. As the movie peaks to the climax, Omana asks Mathew in Kaathal The Core, “Don’t you as well want to be saved (from the social taboo)?” In a way, the acceptance of an individual becomes the liberation of the whole society, as portrayed by the movie. The movie discusses the entanglement of several homosexual individuals in married relationships in-depth.
Mammootty, as an actor, remains the same throughout the movie—a class act, but static with expressions. Notably, that is what the whole script demands: a man in an existential labyrinth. However, the moment of acceptance happens, he is smiling and in a jolly mood. The film might remind the viewer of Mammootty”s performances of Unda, Puzhu, Thaniyavarthanam, Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam, Munnariyippu, Dany, Boothakkannadi, Vidheyan, Ponthan Mada, or Mathilukal.
Jyotika carries Omana to the culmination with utmost perfection. As this reviewer mentioned earlier, this is Omana”s story. Like many other characters in the movie, Omana has limited dialogues but a longer presence across the film. One word that can define Jyotika”s overall performance is “maturity.” One performance I have seen in the recent past similar to Jyotika”s is Lily Gladstone”s Mollie Kyle in Martin Scorsese”s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Jyotika gives Omana the exact composure the character demands, and this is probably the best performance of the Tamil actor so far.
This story demanded a different level of cinematography and the frames needed to tell the story without dialogues. Frames presented themselves to elaborate the story as they concentrated on emotions from the movie.
The movie revolves around the much-needed social and political change in society. The characters and the system within the movie find success, both politically and personally. The movie is a successful treatment on an important issue. And it is a Mammootty-Jyotika-Jeo Baby movie worth watching. The experimentalism, that this writer mentioned earlier does not affect Mammootty as an actor at all, because, he had the guts to take up roles like a casteist murderer in Puzhu, a rapist-murderer-feudal landlord in Paleri Manikyam: Oru Pathirakolapathakathinte Katha and a serial killer in Munnariyippu in the recent past. But, a megastar as a gay paddling through the conflicts of an imaginary family is a challenge for the fans and audience alike.
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