Director: Shaji Kailas
Writer: Rajesh Jayaraman (screenplay)
Cast: Mohanlal
In my review of director Ranjith’s Drama, I had wondered out loud about the possibility of a film that featured no one else but Mohanlal. This was long before Covid and at least two years before films shot in a single location and with minimal cast became an overkill. It was also a time when there was a cliche floating around suggesting that were only three sights Malayalis would never tire of—the sea, the majestic elephant and of course our favourite Mohanlal. But many Aarattus and Monsters later, the cliche doesn’t seem to have aged all that well. What Shaji Kailas does with Alone is erase that cliche from our collective memory by creating a film so obsessed with its superstar that you’re looking towards heaven with the hope to see another face.
Set inside one apartment building in Kochi at the height of the first lockdown, Alone sets the rules for the tiny world it’s trying to create. It declares early on that it is going to be a single-actor film with all the supporting roles appearing only as voices. The film’s protagonist is a man named Kalidas (Mohanlal) who we know little about. The mannerisms and body language of this man appear to have been based on the many heroes Mohanlal played in director Ranjith’s films. But if you want to get pedantic about it, Kalidas is closest in spirit to Chandramouli from Rock And Roll—just as pretentious and with the same love for spouting pop philosophy.
The basic idea, believe it or not, reminded me of Mohanlal’s own Vismayathumbathu. This film calls it telepathy but it’s about a person with a higher consciousness being able to listen to the voices of two people who lived in his apartment before he moved in. Naturally, this is meant to create thrilling moments where you’re unable to decipher if what you’re seeing is real or not. But what the script does with the ultra-thin plot is pretty much what ChatGPT could have done with one simple instruction.
So when it transforms into a murder mystery, the clues are right in front of you, without the need to keep thinking. Even otherwise, the number of characters is kept to such a minimum that you’re able to see the red herrings hours before. If the larger framework of the screenplay feels too basic, the same makes you feel like it’s Oscar-worthy when you compare it to the dialogues. The conversations between a mother and her daughter, which are meant to sound like they’re from beyond the grave, actually sound like old Doordarshan commercials selling calendars. Kalidas too is forced to mouth lines that only serve the plot without any hint of personality or humour. This removes you from investing anything into these characters, so much so that the only game you’re playing is to identify the other actors based on their voices.
Of these, the most fun is when you’re listening to Prithviraj play a retired gunda named Hari Bhai. Given that Shaji Kailas’ Kaapa is so fresh in our memory, I caught myself imagining a Shaji Kailas' cinematic universe where Kotta Madhu (Prithviraj’s Thiruvananthapuram-based gangster in Kaapa) collabbed with Kalidas from Alone for another film. But let’s keep that nightmare for another day.
The reason why you turn against Alone so harshly is because you genuinely feel the lack of effort that has gone in. It’s as though they have decided that closeups and mannerisms of Mohanlal are enough to hold our attention for two hours. In one shot, we zoom in on the star’s eyes so closely that it looks embarrassing. We get angles of him shot from the ground, the ceiling, from behind and from between his legs. As always, you get the sense that Shaji Kailas still believes filmmaking is an exhibition of the weirdest camera angles. This includes one nauseating drone shot that takes you from the road, through the gate and into the building at a super quick pace. We also get dozens of absurd angles that are consciously shaky or titled, only to get us to notice the filmmaking “style”. What this reveals is how the filmmaker is trying the mask the lack of fresh information by overcompensating with complex camera work and loud pointless music.
Then there’s the question of logic that makes the experience even more excruciating. Among the many clues that sets the tone for the investigation is what the spirit writes on one of the mirrors. Not only is this information needed early on but it also tells us to accept the supernatural as a possibility in this film. But later, when the same spirit uses stickers to reveal the investigation’s biggest clue, you find it shockingly stupid that it didn’t just write the message on the same mirror like it did earlier.
It tests your patience even further when it forces an angle about child abuse into this insipid script. You’re exhausted by this point and when the film tries even harder with another one of those last minute twists (like the secret agent reveal at the end of Aarattu) you’ve not only checked out but you’ve also left the room. Sadly, there is only boredom in this building.