Drishyam 3

“Everything is planned…” When Ajnabee had Bobby Deol exposing Akshay Kumar in a corny yet wildly entertaining climax, we watched with amusement while tapping our feet to an infectious Anu Malik tune. It was never meant to feel intelligent. The same planning by a sharp-minded person made the Malayalam film Drishyam a national sensation. Georgekutty (Mohanlal) put Malayalam cinema on the national movie map, perhaps for the first time in history. Shockingly enough, Drishyam 3, the sequel to Drishyam 2, finds its tension in spontaneity and unpredictability, not foolproof planning. The question is: are we ready for this version of Georgekutty?

“I thought we agreed to put this behind us,” a character says, defeatedly, to another in Jeethu Joseph’s Drishyam 3, the apparently concluding chapter of one of the most thoughtful trilogies (and remarkably consistent series of thrillers) to emerge from modern Indian cinema. With the smashing Drishyam 2, which released directly on streaming during the pandemic, Joseph evolved a clever, unputdownable thriller into a ghost story. That is to say, a story about the ghosts of the past and how they haunt us. It became a story about a life of fear, and the weight of guilt and trauma plaguing Georgekutty (Mohanlal continues to carefully craft one of Indian cinema’s most enjoyable recent creations), his wife Rani (Meena George), and his daughters Anu (Esther Anil) and Anju (Ansiba).

How long can a man outrun the ghosts of his past? A middle-class family man who once went to unimaginable lengths to protect his family now finds himself battling a past that refuses to stay buried (literally). This is what Jeethu Joseph’s Drishyam 3 is all about. Does Jeethu Joseph have a few more tricks up his sleeve to make the third film in the franchise as interesting as the first two were? Let’s find out. Producer Georgekutty (Mohanlal) has successfully released his first film, which is based on the events that happened in his family. As he is hounded with congratulations and offers for overseas release and remakes, there’s also a looming threat for his family. This time, it’s not the police or Geetha Prabakar (Asha Sharath), who lost her son Varun, who is coming after Georgekutty.

Georgekutty, the protagonist of the Drishyam franchise, has the kind of baggage that perhaps few other onscreen criminals have carried. He is no natural criminal. Rather, his criminality is built upon his image of a complete family man, someone who goes to any lengths to protect his family. He does not revel in crime, though one can read some pride in him for always being a step ahead of the police. In Drishyam 3, writer-director Jeethu Joseph firmly places him in family situations for much of the runtime. Georgekutty (Mohanlal) is busy arranging the marriage of his elder daughter, Anju (Ansiba Hassan). Brokers come and go, and promising proposals fall through, with the family’s dark past remaining as a barrier to many. Some anonymous souls in the neighbourhood are also trying to spoil the marriage plans. The marriage itself is integral to the plot development. So much so that the film could have come with the tagline - The Story of an Arranged Marriage.