The poster is of three men rowing a boat on a moonlit night, towards somewhere. The image I bring back home from Kumbalangi Nights is of that ‘somewhere’ they row towards. A house on the shore that one of the men describes as a place in which those, whom no one wants, end up. A house and a neighbourhood in Kochi that at the end of the movie you feel so close to, for that’s how easily Syam Pushkaran’s story snatches your heart away, helped by some really powerful performances by the likes of Soubin Shahir, Fahadh Faasil and Shane Nigam.
One of the later occupants of the house calls this house beautiful. And the youngest of the four men of that house – Franky by name – asks in surprise, “Really?”. He had once told his eldest brother – Saji played by Soubin Shahir – that it is the worst house in the panchayat, made so bad by his two brothers who are always at each other’s throats. Saji and Bobby (Shane Nigam) can’t even make peace on their late father’s remembrance day. Bonny (Sreenath Bhasi), the brother who comes to visit, sees the fighting and rows the boat away.
There, without a voiceover that appears to have become customary in movies these days, without any grand entries, new director Madhu C Narayanan, coming from Aashiq Abu’s school of filmmaking, introduces you to the house that will become the centre
