Varshangalkku Shesham review: Nivin Pauly’s cameo saves the day in Vineeth Sreenivasan’s tribute to cinema and friendship and dig at nepotism

Varshangalkku Shesham, starring Dhyan Sreenivasan and Pranav Mohanlal, released on SonyLIV on Friday.

It is one thing to watch Vineeth Sreenivasan the actor ace his sinister game in the inventive, darkly comic Mukundan Unni Associates (2022) and quite another to see Vineeth Sreenivasan the director who aims for nostalgia in his films. The latter seems to have stopped watching movies after the 1980s-90s. But he seems sated by clocking box office earnings.

Varshangalkku Shesham Movie Overview

Vineeth Sreenivasan’s Malayalam film Varshangalkku Shesham, which released on SonyLIV and translates to ‘years later’, is a meta film. It shows the inner workings of a film industry but, unlike such films as Mahanati, Dirty Picture, Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback, or in the Hindi landscape, Kaagaz ke Phool and the recent web-series Jubilee, Varshangalkku Shesham does not revolve around the film industry’s pitfalls but rather gyrates around the ups and downs of the friendship between Venu (Dhyan Sreenivasan) and Murali (Pranav Mohanlal).

Varshangalkku Shesham Cast: The Nepotism Brigade

The cast comprises Vineeth Sreenivasan regulars, and the film is a nepotistic fare even though it takes a dig at nepotism within the film industry and uses the film industry ‘outsider’ and the best actor in this film to spit facts, comically. Nivin Pauly, also a Vineeth regular, has excellent comic timing and despite just a cameo in the second-half, reinvigorates the film. Dhyan is Vineeth’s younger brother in real life, and both of them are yesteryear actor Sreenivasan’s sons, Pranav is Malayalam cinema’s megastar Mohanlal’s son. And, also seen in a cameo is Kalyani, daughter of director Priyadarshan and actress Lissy.

Varshangalkku Shesham Movie Trailer

Varshangalkku Shesham Review: Driving the Plot

Dhyan’s expressions and witty repartee showed immense potential as the film began, he is quite electric as the younger Venu in the film but as the older Venu, he loses steam like Vineeth’s script. Vineeth the director himself makes an appearance in the film, driving his brother to his destination, in reel and real life. Pranav, apart from looking like Mohanlal in his introductory song, and trying to pull antics like Mohanlal did in his films — as a drunk breaking into laughter or throwing a knowing wink at his friend — falls flat as an actor and remains one note through the film. Floating about like a light cloud, evaporating like cigarette smoke.

Varshangalkku Shesham Review: Laapataa Ladies and Bromance 

The Pranav and Kalyani track’s writing is weak. First, Kalyani’s Annie looks out of place in the setting and, second, the abrupt end to their romance and the relationship dynamics she has with her brother-in-law remains unexplained. Equally sudden is Dhyan and Neeta Pillai’s Radhika’s romance. Radhika sees in Venu, a struggling assistant director, a safe husband material as opposed to her predatory co-star, the hero of the film she’s shooting for. The writing of the women characters is weak, they don’t add much to the plot. Like a reversal to old times, the women seem to be taking a backseat, if not vanishing, from mainstream Malayalam films, what with Bramayugam and Manjummel Boys, among others. Not only is Vineeth’s film partly set in the ’80s, when women in cinema didn’t have much say, in Varshangalkku Shesham, the bromance between Venu and Murali, which almost feels queer, in the way a young Venu is reverentially awestruck by Murali’s presence and talent and the way he longingly looks at him.

Varshangalkku Shesham Review: Friendship meets potholes in film industry

Varshangalkku Shesham, enriched with live orchestra and melodic composition by Amrit Ramnath, is set in two time periods, 1980s and now, and straddles between the two. The film is both a tribute to the many strugglers who dream of making it big in the movies and a satire that takes a dig at its own makers. Dhyan’s Venu is a struggling playwright and Pranav’s Murali is a young musician. The two encourage each other to move beyond folk theatre and try their luck in Madras film industry. But can their friendship endure this journey?

Varshangalkku Shesham Review: Writing needs a lift

Once the two, and the film, lands in Kodambakkam, the script derails, as the two friend’s struggle to survive, helping each other, one finding success at the other’s behest while the other drowns in alcohol, and ego clashes all feels staged, surface level and already-seen. Neither character ploughs the depths of their soul, the complexities get a touch-and-go treatment. Vineeth tends to oversimplify complex human emotions, in a way a certain kind of mainstream cinema of yore used to do. Malayalam cinema has come a long way since but Vineeth rides on nostalgia. He sweeps the conflicts under the carpet and pepper in comedy to move on with the plot. In this film too, he doesn’t allow the tension between friends to brew for long.

Varshangalkku Shesham Review: Nivin Pauly, industry outsider and star performer with great comic timing

Only much later does Nivin Pauly’s Nithin Molly saves the day in this Vineeth Sreenivasan film. Seven films of Nihtin Molly have flopped. Will his eighth, directed by an older Dhyan, scored by an older Pranav, and produced by Aju Varghese’s Jayan Keshavadev, be his awaited comeback? Well, before that, his drunk tirade goes viral. Right here, Vineeth makes a subtle commentary on the current times, on how actors today become stars — or need to become stars — on social media with their antics more than their films. Pauly ensures that his character and his audience will go bonkers seeing him in an otherwise well-intentioned, good-hearted, humorous at times but largely insipid film about friendship.