#Kappela #ImpulsiveThoughts #SpoilerAlert
One needs write a screenplay around this central idea - 'Appearances can often be deceiving'. To do this, we need a face of innocence - one that comes with the guarantee that audience would shower all their empathy onto. Enter Anna Ben (Jessy), who made us shiver alongside her in her last claustrophobic survival thriller 'Helen'. Introduce a plot element - the telephonic romance with a stranger. Now we need a similar 'trustable' face at the other end of the telephone. Enter Roshan Mathew (Vishnu) who's out there in recent times as the household boy next door image in the Malayalam film industry. The drama continues, so is the romance. Enter the conflict. Enter Sreenath Bhasi (Roy) with his track record of portraying certain characters with grey shades.
To put it simply, the unpredictable one. Everything that meets the eyes of Jessy isn't what it looks like. As the game of deciet unfolds and ends, we get to know that the screenplay is cleverly written to mainly deceive the audience alongside the lead character Jessy - only to emphasize the central theme with more impact. A seemingly honest auto driver is revealed to be a con luring women into trafficking. His seemingly loving sisters turn out to be accomplices. A jobless rogue - seemingly the toxic one in a relationship is actually revealed to be a savior with concern for women. The way the moral tables were turned so quickly was sheer brilliance in screenwriting!
One of the biggest achievements of the film is that it conveys such an important and relevant social message without even an ounce of preaching and under the guise of a thriller. Amused how the Malayalam industry is pushing it's limits in writing thrillers - Kappela sets the benchmark a notch above last year's Ishq and Helen.
The film's structure reminded me of the infamous quote from The Prestige (2006). If the lost mobile phone prior to the interval forms the first act of the magic trick, the same mobile is returned almost immediately, thus reversing and forming the second act. But as audiences, we wouldn't clap yet, since we were missing out on something. It's only when things fall in place towards the end of the movie that we realise that it was us who actually GET FOOLED. ❤️
Kappela (2020) | dir. Muhammad Musthafa
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