True to its name, the film begins with the story of a 10 year old boy expecting a baby sister from his nearly fully pregnant mother in flashback colours – his mother’s pet, the village’s darling, friends’ hero, but his drunk Tamilian stepfather’s hate. The build up to this smooth but fractured childhood in the title song is disrupted by the death of the mother at child birth. The helplessness of a boy that young, losing the only loving relative he had to an unexpcted death is conveyed effectively. As an audience we feel sad for his plight & future with a man who has no attachment towards him whatsoever. But the new born baby girl changes all of it turning him into her caregiver under these harsh circumstances. The story smells of more tragedy such as when the sister grows older into a tweenager, her father offers her to his friend. The brother who arrives in the nick of time saves her by slaughtering the two men. But the trauma of the incident seems to have set into the little girl’s mind just as the blood speckled on her petticoat had dried & strained the cloth.
In the present, Prithviraj (Ronny) introduced in a flamboyant 1980s hero style is interrupted by the entry of his sidekick (Dharmajan) to tell us they work for Joy caterers, and are about to serve lunch at a wedding. Kottayam Naseer who is the Joy of Joy Caterers, Joy Tours & Travels etc etc etc .. with a trying to be happy but still can’t conceal the sadness sub-story of a childless couple is a small scale business man in Cochin. At the wedding reception, a brash and loud Madonna Sebastian along with her girlfriends get into trouble with Ronny for cutting the buffet queues to heap their plates with food. But she turns out to be the daughter of the groom and not a student of the college nearby trying sneak in a free lunch as they assumed her to be. As the flashback and the present go their parallel ways in the plot so far, Joy enters again to ask Ronny a favour, this time to pick up one of his regular guests from the bus hub and drop him at a pre-booked hotel accomodation. However, things go haywire for Joy & Ronny as the man Chandy (Kuttan), Ronny picks up turns out to be the wrong guy. He soon finds himself in an accident after which he tells Ronny’s name as his local guardian. If you found this tedious, the first half of the film is like a game with more known actors from the industry being introduced one after the other without much context. Prasanna of the Comfort Ad fame is also introduced but by the looks, sounds & bgm he can be immediately registered as the villain. But the film offers no curiosity brownie points to find out where he intersects with the lives of our Joy boys. This is where he film fails in script & direction, it fails to inject that adrenaline edge of the seat curiosity associated with a vengeance or a thriller.
However, the film isn’t as bad as its was reviewed at the time of its release during Onam this last month. But it is not the interesting kind either. When a film comes with a title like brother’s day, it is indicative of the centrality of the the character of the brother in it. Nevertheless, the plot falls flat as the suspense is centred on the play on the audience’s mind as to who among these characters form the intial brother-sister pair from the flashback..Nadir Shah’s debut felt like a one hour tv skit stretched longer into a film with an interesting climax. We will have to wait for Shajoan to write more scripts & direct more films to see him carve his niche as a film maker like he did for his acting career.
Watchable, one time is too much, but with adequate breaks if you want to, that is. Go with zero expectations.
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