Did I tell you that I had been to a sentimental work out called 'Grihanathan' lately, that served little purpose other than remind me that this is yet another film that has been stocked up with plenty and plenty of overused formulae?
Vishwanathan Nair (Mukesh) is the general manager of a private firm, married happily to Anitha (Sonia Aggarwal). The couple has a child and all is hunky dory in their family life except for the disgruntled smirk that occupies Anitha's face, 24 x 7. The reason is Vishwanathan's extravagance that she simply cannot stand.
Having watched another film on the folly of wastefulness recently, ('Diamond Necklace' to be more precise), I should say that 'Grihanathan' seemed unpardonable a cinematic offence to me. And the grievances that I have to list out are more than one.
With so many women neighbors vying for his attention, we would expect Vishwanathan Nair to be a Casanova, which he is not. He looks his age, sports a paunch, and tries hard to be believable. I wonder if these are the criteria that make a man hot property, and only then GV (as he is affectionately called by his female fans) would fit the bill.
This film so much reminds you of the Rajasenan films that were made a good ten to fifteen years back, but some of which remain still enjoyable. When I say 'Grihanathan' reminds you of those films, I do not mean that this is a film that could be compared with it. It merely reminds you and makes you wish that you were watching one of those films instead.
House management, you see, isn't as easy as it seems. It takes a lot of courage to talk it out with the vegetable vendor, pay your bills and decide on which kinda fish you are going to have for lunch. It's a skill that requires mathematical precision, and keeping a notebook at hand might always be beneficial.
That's the kind of moral that I took home after 'Grihanathan'. I haven't been able to put all this into practice as yet, because the latter half of the film that portrays the fall of GV and the rise of Anitha, has still left me in shock. Absurd is something that we can put up with, but what if the writing doesn't even stop there?
Mukesh has no issues playing the title role. Sonia Aggarwal, they say, has been waiting for the perfect role to make her debut in Malayalam. Finally she does, and I didn't see her sweating it out; not with this performance anyhow. If at all there was someone who really moved mountains, it must have been Bhagyalekshmi whose voice is the best thing about Anitha!
Thus, 'Grihanathan' ends up being a woefully pedestrian effort, with a story that lacks plausibility and surprise. It isn't a really bad film, as in 'Bad', but unfortunately in these good cinema times, anything that doesn't offer something special, gets to be branded lifeless. And lifeless almost equals, bad.
