Bro Daddy Review : A Breezy fun ride with its heart at the right place

Director: Prithviraj Sukumaran

 

Cast: Mohanlal, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Kalyani Priyadarshan.

 

After the rather low-key promotional stint, the second collaboration between Mohanlal and Prithviraj as actor, director respectively is finally out and to riff off on a line by Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth from OUTIH, we get a brother who is a little more than a daddy and a daddy who is a little lesser than a brother in cinematic equivalence. The film is an easy on the eye, self-contained dramedy with shades of a recent Ayushman Khuranna blockbuster thrown in there, that borrows its narrative’s central conceit, used here as more of an incidental plot device. The film builds it atmosphere with the lavishness of a high-end television commercial and the narrative texture of a Priyadarsan comedy to narrate the story of a couple of untimely pregnancies and its implications on two best friends and their families. Constipation and fainting jokes aside, the writing works and most of the situational humour lands and sticks well.

John Kattadi (Mohanlal) is a bumbling businessman who lives with his Wife Anna (Meena) and son (Eesho), an advertiser working out of Bangalore, add to the mix another affluent family of the Kuriens’ headed by Kurien( Lalu Alex) and a series of awkward, untimely revelations and mayhem ensues. Prithviraj is a visually motivated filmmaker as demonstrated by his directorial debut “Lucifer”, clearly willing to sacrifice nuance at the altar of controlled visual aesthetics, an approach that works here, owing to the way the whole film is plotted. Since the screenplay offers nothing new in terms of overarching thematic payoffs or subtext, some of these devices falls back to the way the camera holds our attention even through some of the operational exposition sequences and lines of throwaway dialogues, pleasingly framed, well planned out shot division, especially in the two shot conversation scenes that dominate a major part of the whole narrative, otherwise with no much dramatic undertones.

The fluency in the filmmaking, rescues the films jarring departures at many points with the odd few gag-like jokes that fails to register. This visual design, pretty much lend a sense of rhythm, forcing us to dwell further in the world of cinematic clichés and convenient writing choices aplenty. Mohanlal just oozes vitality and charm, a trait missing in many of his last projects, a direct result of back to back appearances in outdated rehash projects, barring a few big budget films. We finally get to see the man, on his heels, ready to take up any challenge thrown at him with the physical stamina and onscreen persona, that is a trademark of his acting legacy. The wide-eyed glances, naughty interludes that play out in full throttle coupled with the effortless body acting, orchestrated with flamboyant candour by a fanboy turned filmmaker, who knows how to show his icon on screen.

Prithviraj is the second fiddle in a role that demands him to let go off his stiff physique and underplay the frustrations of a youngster caught in an unwarranted mess, and the actor pulls off the role with nothing much to write home about. The tongue in cheek exchanges with his dad play put well and the actor looks convincing as a simpleton, a welcome change in his filmography recently dominated by psychopathic killers and stoic police officers that offer very little, in terms of character development. Lalu Alex walks away with a whole film build around his caged anger management issues, and the actor reminds us the onus of casting experiences hands at one dimensional part, that lend a dynamic onscreen relationship with the supporting players. Kalyani Priyadarsan is her usual self, a bundle of energy, smiling, dancing and scheming her way out of the peculiar turn of events.

Bro Daddy is the kind of film that works due to the often-misleading promotional material, let out by the team, that promised a confusion comedy of sorts with little novelty to offer. However, it’s a superior product of the post lockdown phenomena of the spatially contained covid quickies, shot on a smaller budget with a fewer cast and never feels tampered down by the restrictions. The movie is in some way a litmus test just to see how much of the older sensibilities of the fun, jolly, escapist dramas works out for the content savvy millennials as compared to the uninitiated viewer who is ready to tag along for the ride sans judgements and expectations, anyway. The film plays to gallery and takes its narrative chances and pushes to see if the perfect blend of the old school and new age storytelling exists, if any.