Pulimada review: A fierce, unsettling Joju in a confused thriller

Joju George turns Pulimada's Vincent into a compelling character study. (Screen grab/YouTube/Appu Pathu Pappu Production House)

In a remote village in Malampuzha, a policeman with a troubling family history of mental illness, awaits his bride. Joju George plays Vincent with a naivete and eagerness that immediately makes him endearing to the viewer. His mother (Mala Parvathy) had schizophrenia, and this has made it difficult for Vincent to get married. The family background sets off multiple possibilities in the plot, and A.K. Sajan’s Pulimada begins on this intriguing note – is Vincent as innocent as he looks or is there a beast waiting to be unleashed within him?

‘Pulimada’ means ‘tiger’s den’, and on the day of Vincent’s wedding, two catastrophes occur – his bride elopes with another man, and a tiger is reported to have entered the village from the forest. The amiable Vincent goes into a frenzy, unable to deal with the shock. “Why am I still standing here?” he repeatedly asks at the church, as his family tries to console him. From then on, Vincent spirals into a kind of rage that’s new to him and those around him.

Joju is adept at playing these sinister roles with nuance. His terrifying act as a sadistic rapist in Chola (2019) or identical twins with a dark secret in Iratta (2023) have shown us his range as a performer. In Pulimada, too, he turns Vincent into a compelling character study. As a policeman, his duty is to guard a major tourist attraction – the sculpture of the Yakshi. Interestingly, the large, naked sculpture of the female spirit reminds him of his mother. Vincent loved his mother but is also afraid of the sculpture. The Oedipal shades to the relationship, however, aren’t explored beyond this hint.

Till the point the film builds Vincent’s world, Sajan is sure-footed. But the director slips, and slips badly, from the time Aishwarya Rajesh walks into the screenplay as Mahishmati, a stranded tourist. Aishwarya is a talented actor, and it is entirely due to the writing that Mahishmati comes off as unbearable. Picture this – a young woman’s car breaks down at night in a thick jungle. A stranger of Joju’s substantial proportions arrives on a bike. He’s clearly drunk, but the young woman cheerfully asks him to take her to a homestay.

In a country where a woman is raped every 15 minutes according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Mahismati is a blithe Manic Pixie who seems to have no instinct whatsoever for the dangers that could befall her. The jollity is so forced and unrealistic that you may wonder if Vincent has just conjured her up, given his past. But in a quest to avoid this predictable plot thread, Sajan swerves sharply and lands himself in a ditch.

Sajan’s Puthiya Niyamam (2016) with Mammootty and Nayanthara was about a gangrape survivor who kills her rapists with the secret support of her husband. After Nirbhaya, several such films with women avenging sexual crimes were made across industries, marking a significant turn in film history where rape victims either died or were avenged by men. But not all these films bothered to delve into the nature of sexual violence or its effect on survivors beyond the loss of “honour” and horrific physical injuries.

Puthiya Niyamam may have been well-intentioned but it had one such problematic plot line – the husband knows what happened to his wife, but he doesn’t talk to her about it. Instead, he pretends to be someone else and helps her murder the rapists. He preserves the secret so they can continue to lead a “happy married life”. Sajan’s shallow understanding of sexual violence and the trauma experienced by survivors is exposed even more in Pulimada, where he implies that “intent to rape” is not so bad after all, and a man can be treated as a cuddly teddy bear as long as he doesn’t go all the way.

The supporting cast that includes Chemban, Lijomol and Jeo Baby is competent, and it is the performances that make Pulimada watchable even as the plot turns more and more ridiculous by the minute after the initial promising setup. The background score is loud and intrusive, coming in the way of building suspense. With such a good actor playing the protagonist, you don’t need a jarring score to underline the shifts in mood.

Pulimada could have been a fascinating film, exploring the base, animal instincts within each of us. Too bad for the magnificent Joju, it ends up being a total misfire.