Sarvam Maya Review: When The Spirit Is Chill And The Film Is Kinder
In a time when cinema is busy manufacturing ghosts, algorithm fed, rage-powered, and permanently angry, Sarvam Maya casually walks in with a Gen Z friendly spirit who’s confused, kind, and mostly just vibing. We have had dancer Babuswamis, fabricated godmen, and horror figures assembled like market products. Now, Malayalam cinema gives us something far rarer, a ghost who doesn’t want revenge, jump scares, or dramatic background scores just closure and maybe a decent conversation.
True to its name, Sarvam Maya (which loosely translates to “everything is an illusion”) floats between belief and disbelief, humour, faith and fraud without ever taking itself too seriously. Directed by Akhil Sathyan, Sarvam Maya arrives as an unassuming Christmas release and positions itself as the exact opposite of the season’s louder spectacles.
At the centre of it all is Prabhendu (Nivin Pauly), a struggling musician who proudly calls himself an atheist but belongs to a family of traditional priests known for conducting poojas across the globe. Life, of course, has a wicked sense of humour. When a foreign opportunity slips away and financial pressure mounts, Prabhendu is forced to return to his hometown and temporarily embrace the very profession he ideologically rejects. Sharing space with an emotionally distant father and a familiar yet complicated past, he begins performing rituals out of necessity.
With the help of his cousin Roopesh (Aju Varghese), this reluctant priesthood turns into a small hustle. Things tick along until Prabhendu is asked to perform an exorcism an assignment that lands him with a friendly, clueless spirit who later earns the nickname Delulu (Riya Shibu). She doesn’t remember who she is, or why she’s still around. What she does know is that she’s stuck and Prabhendu, despite his disbelief, might be the only one who can see her.
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Instead of weaponising horror tropes, Sarvam Maya disarms them. There are no jump scares, no ominous shadows creeping along walls. Delulu looks like she could walk out of an Instagram reel, and her confusion about her ghosthood becomes a source of gentle humour rather than fear. Akhil Sathyan leans into sync sound and grounded settings, allowing the fantasy to feel oddly believable, even intimate.
The film’s biggest strength lies in its character dynamics, especially in the first half. The easy, lived-in chemistry between Nivin Pauly and Aju Varghese does much of the heavy lifting. Their exchanges feel spontaneous, silly, and sincere reminding us why this pairing worked so well in the past. The humour isn’t restricted to one half or one track; it’s sprinkled throughout, often emerging from the sheer absurdity of the situation rather than punchline driven writing.
Beneath the comfort watch surface, Sarvam Maya is fundamentally a story about unfinished emotional business. Prabhendu’s atheism is not just ideological it’s rooted in emotional baggage following his life and long-standing emotional silence between him and his father. Decades pass without real conversation, only coexistence. Delulu mirrors this incompleteness; she is literally a soul without context, stuck because her story was never fully told. When two beings suspended in emotional limbo meet, healing becomes mutual.
There’s a particularly telling moment when Prabhendu hesitantly enters his father’s room after years of emotional distance and finally sees the man not as an authority figure, but as someone fragile, ageing, and quietly struggling. The film shines in these understated moments, even if it occasionally over explains them later.
Where Sarvam Maya slightly stumbles is in its backstory-light emotional stretches. The subtlety that defines the humour gives way to more verbal, explanatory drama. Certain emotional beats feel spelt out when they could have been trusted to land on their own. The film occasionally leans into familiar feel-good structures, relying on warmth instead of surprise. A bit of trimming here could have made the experience even smoother.
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That said, Nivin Pauly in his comfort zone is a gift. His comic timing, casual body language, and expressive restraint remind us why his screen presence is so reassuring.Riya Shibu, in her Malayalam debut as a lead, brings an effortless, breezy energy to Delulu, perfectly matching the character’s innocence and modern sensibility. Aju Varghese, predictable yet effective, adds rhythm and spark whenever he appears.
On the technical front, Justin Prabhakaran’s background score gently supports the film’s mood, though the songs themselves don’t linger much beyond the runtime. Sharath Velayudhan’s cinematography captures an unshowy warmth, complementing the film’s grounded tone. Akhil Sathyan’s direction continues his inclination toward rewatchable, low-conflict cinema, films that prioritise emotional ease over narrative fireworks.
Sarvam Maya may not reinvent the horror-comedy genre, but it doesn’t need to. It knows exactly what it wants to be, a soft, funny, emotionally considerate film that prefers conversation over chaos. It’s predictable in parts, yes but predictability cushioned by charm is still comfort.
In a landscape cluttered with noise, manufactured fears, and aggressive storytelling, Sarvam Maya settles in like a familiar tune unpretentious, warm, and strangely reassuring. Not everyone will have the patience for its pace, but for those willing to sit with it, this is a gentle, ghostly hug of a film and honestly, we could use more of those right now.
