Thudakkam gives Vismaya Mohanlal a physically demanding debut where her fighting skills land the punches, even if her acting doesn’t, observes Sreeju Sudhakaran.
IMAGE: Vismaya Mohanlal and Saikumar in Thudakkam.
Key Points
- Vismaya Mohanlal makes a physically impressive debut in Thudakkam, particularly in the action sequences, though her overall performance remains inconsistent.
- Jude Anthany Joseph’s darkest film yet begins as an intriguing missing-person thriller but loses momentum when its women-empowerment themes fall back on clichés and sentimentality.
- Mohanlal’s crowd-pleasing cameo gives the film a much-needed lift, but ironically undermines the individual agency that his daughter’s character is supposed to represent.
Thudakkam is the highly publicised launchpad for Mohanlal’s daughter, Vismaya, and the film is fiercely proud of that identity.
The title translates to ‘beginning,’ a moniker that applies far more to the debutante than to her character. It flaunts this connection so overtly that even the CBFC certificate calls the film ‘Vismaya Mohanlal’s Thudakkam’. I could say I would be the first in my bloodline to witness such an interesting censor certificate.
Mohanlal also steps in to support his daughter with a motivational cameo, delivering lines that serve as obvious, meta nods to their real-life relationship. Simply put, Thudakkam has no qualms about being a movie where its star’s surname matters most.
It also wants to be a feminist, women-empowering film, and that’s where things become more challenging.
Plot and Character Development
Thudakkam revolves around Meenu (Vismaya Mohanlal), who comes to stay in a new town after her father (Saikumar), a village officer, is transferred there.
Meenu, who lost her mother when she was a teenager, is cheerful by nature, instantly bonds with people around her and likes to look after those in need.
While returning from Kochi after appearing for an examination, Meenu goes missing, leading her father and the cops to launch a manhunt for her. This is what the first half of the film sets up, and the whole manhunt track builds enough suspense around what actually transpired with Meenu that day.
Director’s Shift in Tone
Jude Anthany Joseph is known for his feel-good movies that come with a progressive mindset. His breakout film Om Shanti Oshana, for instance, breaks the usual mould of boy-meets-girl by turning it into a girl-meets-boy story. Sara’s dealt with a woman’s decision not to have kids.
Oru Muthassi Gadha was about the friendship between two grannies and how one helps the other close an unresolved chapter from her past.
Even 2018, which dealt with a real-life disaster, focused more on celebrating its heroes and humanity rather than milking the tragedy.
Thudakkam, however, is easily his darkest film to date. It begins with a psychopathic, junkie assassin (Aashish Joe Antony) bludgeoning someone before going on to brutally kill two others. His perverted nature is also established. So this is a first for the director, beginning a film by introducing its villain when his previous movies didn’t really have a human antagonist per se.
After introducing the villain, the movie shifts to Meenu and her father, establishing her happy-go-lucky nature and her tragic childhood through the beautiful Jakes Bejoy composition Thaliromale.
It’s all sweet and okay till then.
Interestingly, the film picks up when the heroine is out of the scene and the narrative revolves around her disappearance. It is established that the antagonist also factors into the mystery, and Thudakkam firmly builds curiosity around what happened to her.
That said, Jude Anthany Joseph’s recreation of what happened is shown through convenient flashbacks rather than actual police investigation. The logic falls apart when you think about how they are able to find out every detail of that day’s events.
The mystery is resolved before the interval, leading to a nail-biting sequence involving the protagonist and antagonist under one roof.
Action and Empowerment Themes
When Pranav Mohanlal made his debut with Aadhi, the plot was designed around his parkour skills. Since Vismaya is trained in the martial art of Muay Thai, it was predicted beforehand that it would play a major role in Thudakkam. If you had those expectations, you won’t be disappointed, as the film’s first showcase of her skills is a clap-worthy moment indeed.
But instead of giving her the upper hand, which would have ended the film an hour earlier, the protagonist suffers a stumbling block. The rest of the film is about her struggling with it emotionally and then rising from it like a phoenix.
This particular plot turn should have made the movie powerful in its intention of being women-empowering, but Thudakkam actually begins to waver in both its writing and pacing here. Jude Anthany Joseph wants to expose society’s hypocrisy in jumping to conclusions about a girl’s character, but the manner in which he goes about it runs on clichés.
Which is perhaps expected when you have filled the movie with plenty of characters, played by notable actors, with little to no defining traits.
Weaker Writing Undermines Its Second Half
There is one fascinating, albeit confusing, emotional beat following the attack on Meenu. Instead of asking if she is okay, her father interrogates her about the attacker, prompting a furious outburst from her. We later see her giving him the silent treatment, a seemingly poignant reaction to his lack of empathy. Yet, despite Meenu’s justified trauma, this compelling narrative thread is entirely abandoned.
To patch up the film during this struggling phase, Mohanlal‘s cameo arrives right at the protagonist’s lowest point. While his undeniable star presence — complete with an out-of-nowhere fight scene that no Lalettan fan will complain about — temporarily lifts the movie’s energy, it comes at a massive cost to the protagonist’s agency.
For a film striving for female empowerment, Thudakkam actively undermines its own heroine. It may not have a man physically rescue her in the climax, but still relies on a male figure to emotionally prod her into the ring.
Even her moment of societal validation hinges on another man’s speech, triggering a sudden, unearned shift in public perception that feels like a byproduct of Jude’s schmaltzy worldview rather than a genuine triumph for Meenu.
The final showdown is brutal and bloody, successfully showing the heroine rising above her adversaries while showcasing more of Vismaya’s impressive fighting skills. I just wish the action choreography had been sharper.
Vismaya Mohanlal, Aashish Joe Antony’s Performances
While I was impressed by her martial arts abilities and her effortless high kicks, Vismaya’s dramatic performance is otherwise inconsistent. She is certainly more expressive than her brother was in his debut film, but because someone else dubbed for her, there are moments where you can see her trying too hard to match lip syncing to those lines.
It isn’t unheard of for actors to use dubbing artists in their initial films, but it shouldn’t feel this obvious. Jude Anthany Joseph does his best to make it less noticeable with some smart camera placements, but it is never completely indiscernible.
He makes a much smarter move with the film’s other proper debutant, Aashish Joe Antony (producer Antony Perumbavoor’s son). By keeping him almost entirely silent, Joseph effectively uses his sheer persona to create an intimidating villain.
Saikumar is reliable as the father and Manoj K Jayan delivers a neat performance as the dutiful circle inspector. The rest of the supporting cast, which includes Gibin Gopinath, Jaffer Idukki, T G Ravi, Pauly Valsan, Kottayam Ramesh, and Bobby Kurian, are merely okay. And, as always in the films he produces, Antony Perumbavoor drops in for a random cameo that elicits unintentional comedy.
Narratively, Thudakkam is highly reminiscent of the Manju Warrier-starrer Prathi Poovankozhi, following a woman taking on her molester single-handedly.
However, while that film effectively establishes the heroine’s lone determination to stand up to her enemy physically, Thudakkam loses its footing in that very aspect. It aims for a similar empowering turn, only to lose the high ground when it desperately needed a man to provide the final push. A fourth-wall breaking push, I guess, considering that man is the debutante’s superstar father.
Thudakkam Review Rediff Rating:
