Sookshmadarshini – My Flash Review!

This Malayalam film with a very interesting title that means “Microscope” is as interesting. The female protagonist played by Nazriya Nazim is named Priyadarshini and is a microbiology graduate. Soon, we understand that she plays the title role of Sookshmadarshini with her penchant for looking at things microscopically. The story is about how she channelizes this habit of hers to solve a mystery that takes place in the neighbourhood.

In many Malayalam films, setting the context takes a long while. In Sookshmadarshini, it takes much longer. A sense of intrigue sets in a neighbourhood community when a family with just a young man and his old mother move in to live.  The behaviour and demeanour of the young man who is the male lead don’t seem normal to us and Priyadarshini while others don’t find anything amiss. The intrigue further builds up when one day the mother goes missing. She apparently suffers from an Alzheimer’s condition. Till now the film progresses at a slow pace as a slice-of-life film. This incident then gets us to more mysterious characters and even mysterious incidents which turn the film into a mystery thriller.

Priyadarshini who is all along a homemaker, is trying for a job in a local company but ends up spending most of her time trying to uncover the mystery happening in her neighbourhood much to the annoyance of her husband. Yet, she pursues the story with relentless zeal till all the knots are untied towards the climax. By now, the film changes form to become a dark thriller with some dark comedy and edge-of-the-seat moments thrown in equal measure. This is where the screenplay written intelligently by Athul Ramachandran and Libin comes into play to take us through all the intriguing twists without saying much. In that sense, the writers test the intelligence of the viewers throughout and this is not a film you can watch with an attention deficit.

It required a fantastic cast to elevate the screenplay and both Nazriya and Basil Joseph who plays the male lead are brilliant throughout. Basil who has a man next-door look also has a villainous and naughty streak in him as we saw in Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey, brings them to the fore in this role.  The background score is haunting and hits the right meter throughout the film. Camera work by Velayudhan Nair is a highlight in the film in keeping the intrigue quotient going in line with the screenplay. Director Jithin does a great job of translating the interesting written material into a film. Particularly I liked the way, the scenes have been edited without lingering for long. Towards the end, the scene alternates between four happenings in a seamless fashion that heightens the suspense quotient.

I regret that I didn’t watch this film on the big screen. This film is optimized for the big screen and I found myself struggling to pick up the nuances on a personal screen while watching on OTT.  After all, there are quite a few shots that are captured from a long view for the microscopic effect.

Sookshmadarshini joins the list of intelligently written mystery thrillers that have come out of Kerala.  For a long time in the film, it is difficult to guess what’s coming and when we get to know, there is a sense of a letdown. The payoff doesn’t come off quite well at the end, I thought. Yet, the film is a great watch for keeping us hooked and engaged throughout while wondering what the hell is going on.

The film had a good theatrical run and had a good word-of-mouth buzz around it. On OTT, the film lives up to the hype around it and I would recommend it as a good watch. It is streaming on Hotstar.