Narivetta' Movie Review, Cast, Actress

Director: Anuraj Manohar
Cast: Tovino Thomas, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Cheran, Priyamvada Krishnan
Language: Malayalam

Narivetta is not a typical cop film. Forgoing typical heroics and speed-flick action, director Anuraj Manohar gives us an intensely personal portrayal of a reluctant khaki-clad man who discovers purpose and responsibility in the slum realities at the grass-roots level.

Tovino Thomas acts as Varghese Peter, an aspiring civil services candidate who became a redundancy in his household, reliant on his mother and not committed to aspiration. Coerced into being a constable, he finds himself posted in Kuttanad—geographically and figuratively far from the dream life he had envisioned. Thomas draws Varghese's aimlessness with understated annoyance, and his transformation is believable.

At first, the movie starts slowly. The tempo of the first act will be gruelling for some, but it is well worth it after Varghese is sent out to guard a land protest in a tribal forest area. Narivetta then shifts into a quiet socio-political drama from here on, engaging with questions of indigenous rights, caste, and the brutality of institutional machinery.

The movie takes subtle hints from actual events such as the 2003 Muthanga one, mixing fact and fiction to create an emotive account. The struggle of the tribal community for the land is told with an empathy axis and an air of reality. Highlights are in the figure of Adiyar Thami, a honey hunter whose physicality is a reflection of the survival ethos of the community.

Varghese's ongoing moral awakening is assisted by his guardian, Basheer, handled with affection by Suraj Venjaramoodu. Cheran, debuting in a Malayalam film, impresses as a no-nonsense disciplinarian commanding officer who ruffles Varghese's assumptions.

Jake Bejoy's music weaves together beautifully the film's emotional peaks and political undercurrents. A near-climactic sequence stays in mind for its raw energy, depicting the price of silence and inaction.

Narivetta is no cop show thriller for the police procedure buffs—it has none of the tension, none of the concise storytelling that old-school cop shows had. But what it does not have in its place is so much more valuable: a considered examination of power, privilege, and purpose. It's about the change of heart of a reluctant man from indifference to compassion, and discovering that a badge is not a matter of ruling but of serving.

Although sluggish in its start, Narivetta is an engaging and softly impactful film that lingers with you long after the credits roll.