Ntikkakkakkoru Premondarnn: Bhavana’s comeback film is on second chances in love

Sharaf U Dheen and Bhavana in 'Ntikkakkakkoru Premondarnn'. (Screen shot/Saregama Malayalam)

It’s been over five years since Bhavana acted in a Malayalam film. You realise how much you missed watching her when she lights up the screen with her smile and fleeting expressions.

Ntikkakkakkoru Premondarnn – which translates to ‘My brother had a love story’ – is a light romance with a few refreshing departures from traditions. Directed by Adhil Maimoonath Asharaf, the film is about second chances and has shades of the blockbuster Tamil film 96 (2018). A pair of sweethearts from school, separated by circumstances, come together once again in a bittersweet reunion years later.

Jimmy (Sharaf U Dheen) is a collector of vintage cars and plans to turn his passion into a business. His love for the old isn’t limited to vehicles; he’s unable to move on from his past relationship with Nithya (Bhavana) whom he’s known since school. Just as he’s looking to work up the courage to build a new relationship, she’s back in his life again. Unlike 96, where the reunion becomes a point of high drama, Ntikkakkakkoru ebbs and flows with the difficulties of patching up the past and moving on in the present.

Sharaf U Dheen and Bhavana are lovely together, catching up effortlessly from where they stopped as young adults. There’s a scene when she finds an old letter that he’d written to her and reads it out, much to his embarrassment. There is a certain comfort and warmth between Jimmy and Nithya that comes only from a love that starts off as a friendship and isn’t steeped in sexual tension. Sharaf U Dheen plays the disappointing younger son of a large Muslim family with ease, and Bhavana too is a sea change from the stereotype of the depressed divorcee. She has a job, she dresses well, she goes out, and is clear about her priorities.

The film unfolds through the cutesy narrative voice of Mariam (Saniya Rafi), Jimmy’s young sister who was born late to his parents. She is a precocious kid, overly interested in affairs of the heart and in the line of nosey children from Parent Trap (1998) or Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998).

It’s Jimmy’s wedding and Mariam invites the viewer into his love story. She speaks directly to the audience, and there are two other characters who also get such fourth wall breaking moments. One is Jimmy and the other is his rather strict father (Asokan). But this conceit isn’t consistent and creates a tonal dissonance, lending the film a forced air of whimsy when it needed more gravitas.

Jimmy, for instance, was forced to give up many of his dreams for the sake of his controlling father, but the film doesn’t really explore this much. The characters forgive and forget too quickly, and the ugliness of the circumstances is drowned out with a cheerful background score and shots of family dinners. Nithya’s story of a toxic marriage is more powerfully constructed, helped mainly by Bhavana’s confident performance as a woman who has taken charge of her life and is determined to be happy. Still, it’s puzzling why her character doesn’t label domestic violence for what it is – and the film doesn’t offer an explanation either. The husband is a one-note misogynist, who makes for a convenient villain.

Like 96, a different set of actors play the younger versions of Jimmy and Nithya. In the Prem Kumar film, this largely worked because the screenplay did not go back and forth in time too many times. We were led into the young people’s story and we stayed there for a while, absorbing their faces and the plot, before being brought back to the present. Though Trisha and Gowri Kishan look nothing like each other, it was still believable (Vijay Sethupathi and Aadithya Bhaskar were a better match) because the contrast wasn’t being thrust in your face. In Ntikkakkakkoru, the casting of the young actors simply doesn’t work, especially the young Nithya who looks very different from Bhavana – and this is difficult to ignore because the screenplay intersperses shots of the two actors frequently.

Would it have been better to focus on the present, considering this love story, of two people with baggage, is far more interesting than a generic high school romance? Anarkali Nazar, as lawyer Fidaa, Jimmy’s maybe-may-not-be-fiancee is also a character who deserved better. Nazar plays this assertive yet conflicted young woman with nuance, but her character seems to be doing all the emotional heavy lifting in the relationship despite getting the short end of the stick.

For all its flaws, though, Ntikkakkakkoru often puts a smile on your face because of the little moments that its lead actors share. The film rides on their chemistry, the mischievous giggles and hugs that seem so natural. Welcome back to Malayalam cinema, Bhavana. It’s good to see you again.