Sarvam Maya Review: One Of The Season’s Sweetest Watches

Akhil Sathyan’s Sarvam Maya belongs firmly to the category of films that disguise themselves as light fantasy-horror but gradually reveals itself as deeply human, comfort-soaked Malayalam dramas with a modern soul.

Released on December 25, 2025, Sarvam Maya (Everything Is a Delusion) marks a warmly received commercial comeback for Nivin Pauly, and it does so not by reinventing him, but by trusting what he does best, vulnerability wrapped in humour.

Spoiler Alert

The film opens on a deceptively cheerful note. A breezy, feel-good Malayalam song introduces us to Prabhendu Namboothiri (Nivin Pauly), an electric guitarist, orchestra musician, and unapologetic atheist born into a high-profile Namboothiri priest family deeply connected to temple rituals.

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 Prabhendu is away from home, chasing music and a possible trip to Europe, until fate intervenes and his visa is rejected.

Defeated, he returns to his ancestral home in Palakkad to celebrate his father’s birthday.

The homecoming is awkward, layered with unspoken judgments, rituals he doesn’t believe in, and a family that doesn’t quite know what to do with him.

Enter Roopesh (Aju Varghese), his cousin and a temple priest, whose comic timing adds immediate warmth.

Alongside them is Prahladan Namboothiri (Janardhanan), the retired senior priest, played with lived-in wisdom and nostalgia.

Circumstances and money troubles push Prabhendu to assist Roopesh in temple poojas and rituals. As a struggling musician with no steady income, faith becomes employment before it becomes belief.

Initially, Sarvam Maya doesn’t even feel like a ghost film. It moves at a steady, almost slice-of-life pace, grounded in family spaces, temple courtyards, casual humour, and small-town rhythms.

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The genre shift happens almost casually. During an exorcism at a flat involving a boy whose family believes he is possessed, something goes wrong. The “ghost” leaves the boy, and soon after, starts following Prabhendu.

But this is not the kind of haunting Malayalam cinema usually prepares us for.

There are no jump scares. Instead, the ghost begins doing… trivial things. Ordering clothes on Prabhendu’s phone. Making comments. Appearing randomly, not menacingly. Confusing him more than terrifying him.

The gradual realisation that this is a ghost story is one of the film’s cleverest tonal achievements.

The ghost, who later introduces herself as Delulu, is played by Riya Shibu in a performance that is nothing short of delightful.

She is modern, chatty, emotionally intelligent, respectful of boundaries, and unmistakably Gen Z — half English, half Malayalam, full vibe.

This is not a possessive or tragic ghost in the traditional sense. She doesn’t scream for revenge. She doesn’t intrude violently into Prabhendu’s life. Instead, she observes. She listens. She waits.

Riya Shibu brings remarkable restraint and warmth to Delulu. Her mannerisms, speech patterns, and emotional pauses feel natural rather than performative. She giggles, she sulks, she gets curious — and somewhere in between, she becomes real.

Malayalam cinema has seen human-ghost relationships before, Vismayathumbathu, Meghasandesam, but Sarvam Maya updates that dynamic for a generation raised on therapy language, emotional boundaries, and self-awareness.

This ghost doesn’t demand love; she earns companionship.

Nivin Pauly’s Prabhendu is written squarely within his comfort zone, and that is precisely why it works. His humour feels instinctive, almost careless, often sabotaging his own character for a laugh.

Whether he’s panicking after realising he’s being haunted, arguing with a ghost about faith, or navigating awkward rituals, Nivin grounds the fantasy with emotional honesty.

The film also quietly explores Prabhendu’s past trauma, the death of his mother, which becomes the emotional reason for his atheism.

This grief is not dramatised loudly; instead, it surfaces slowly through conversations, silences, and Delulu’s gentle probing.

Much like Pachuvum Athbutha Vilakkum, Akhil Sathyan once again tells the story of a man surrounded by a woman who subtly alters the course of his life through presence.

The relationship between Prabhendu and Delulu is built on companionship before romance. Boundaries are established, respected, and occasionally tested.

While Sarvam Maya largely succeeds, it isn’t without discomfort.

The arc where an atheist protagonist subtly moves toward belief feels forced, bordering on ideological insistence rather than organic transformation.

It slightly undercuts the film’s otherwise progressive handling of faith and doubt.

There is also a scene where a derogatory Malayalam term is casually used about a woman for humour, a moment that feels unnecessary and out of place in an otherwise gentle film.

These moments don’t break the film, but they do remind us of its limitations.

The music deserves special mention. The songs are soft, hummable, and emotionally aligned with the narrative.

Akhil Sathyan once again proves that he is less interested in spectacle than in temperament.

And in doing so, Sarvam Maya finds its place among Malayalam cinema’s warm, rewatchable stories, a film that lingers not as a scare, but as a presence.

Cast

• Nivin Pauly

• Riya Shibu

• Aju Varghese

• Janardhanan

• Preity Mukhundhan

• Raghunath Paleri

• Madhu Wariar

• Arun Ajikumar

• Vineeth

Crew

• Director & Writer: Akhil Sathyan

• Producers: Ajayya Kumar, Rajeev Menon

• Cinematography: Sharan Velayudhan

• Editing: Akhil Sathyan, Rathin Radhakrishnan

• Music: Justin Prabhakaran