Calendar

Calendar

A rather genuine theme that has been messed up big time! That is exactly the feeling we get after watching actor turned director Mahesh's Calendar.

It's essentially about the obsession that a mother has towards her daughter. A noble thought indeed, but it is the way that the story has been told, which makes it ineffective to a great extent. With a clumsy screenplay, shoddy direction, poor visuals and even silly make-up, Calendar is at best, a wasted opportunity.

Thankam George (Zarina Wahab) is a college lecturer widowed soon after her daughter's birth. The mother and the daughter, Kochurani (Navya), can't be away from each other even for a day.

The equations begin to change after Thankam learns that her daughter is in love with Olikkara Sojappan (Prithviraj), a school dropout. After a while, she agrees for the marriage, but fate had different plans!

The film packs in too many things at a time and as a result it turns out to be a messy affair. It begins with some asinine comical scenes that test your patience. With flashbacks that continues to appear without a definite order, half-baked characters, poor visuals and most importantly, some disappointing performances, the film loses its way soon and meanders aimlessly from then on.

One gets the feeling that the focus of the film should have been on the elegant Zarina Wahab, who is making her comeback to Malayalam films after some decades. Perhaps the makers too have started off with that intention as well, but just didn't know how to.

The affection that the mother and daughter shares would have been a great premise, if shown well. Now, that is no surprise as even the romance between the characters played by Prithviraj and Navya has also been largely ignored.

Instead, too much time has been wasted in showing the comedy track involving Jagathy Sreekumar, Mallika Sukumaran, Maniyanpillai Raju and Kottayam Nazeer, which is often pavement humour that fails to generate any laughs. One of the best things about the film is the music by Afzal Yusuf. But the background score is not in sync with the mood at times.

Calendar has a decent plot and resources as well, like a hugely talented cast, for instance. But here the makers just didn't know how to use it all, in a wise manner and make it into an enjoyable entertainer!

Verdict: Average