Tovino Thomas – Darshana Rajendran starrer ‘Dear Friend’ theatrically released on 10th June and met with positive to mixed critical reception. The film began streaming on Netflix India from 10th July and it seems like the streaming platform has beautifully uplifted the small indie gem by exposing it to its target audience.
Dear Friend had to face dismal box-office returns ,quite on the lines of dismissal despite the film being actually a good watch. The critics response was mildly mixed as they seemed taken aback by the climax twist. All of these didn’t help the film in anyway until it came on Netflix. Once the film came on Netflix, people started appreciating how relatable the content of the film is. Twitteratti is continuously flooding the hashtag of the film with appreciation and genuine love. Not only does Dear Friend fall partly on the ‘feel good’ genre Malayalam Cinema is widely known for amongst non-native speakers, but also has ample psychologically draining drama that working millennials living far from home could largely relate to. Having two popular stars, Tovino and Darshana on-board also worked well for the film’s streaming audience acceptance.
If parallels are to be drawn, Dear Friend’s streaming reception reminds us of what happened to the 2015 Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone starrer ‘Tamasha’. Not only was Tamasha disliked by critics, but it also received mixed audience acceptance. However, it took its sweet time for the audience to see through how relatable was Ved’s journey in Tamasha. The film is now in fact one of the very few titles of last decade that enjoys a cult following.
Although Dear Friend hasn’t topped Netflix India’s Overall Top 10 trending chart so far, its positioned at #8 in the list of Netflix Top 10 Movies since last two days. One can expect the film to atleast crack into Netflix Top 10 Overall in coming days, if not enjoy a dream run like Jana Gana Mana (2022). Quite expectedly, the film is going to do much better on Netflix in coming weeks simply because its quite relatable. Its language is universal. The Current generation that spends more time with their friends than family can relate to everything the characters in the film go through.
The movie follows a group of friends (Vinod, Jannath, Arjun, Shyam, Sajith and Amutha), their lives, their bonds, struggles, estranged families, personal tragedies and so on. One fine day, they find Vinod is missing and see that he has left behind a note saying he doesn’t want anyone to search for him. Shocked and terribly ached, remaining members of the gang figure out what made him do this. They are taken aback by shocking revelations and painful psychological repercussions. Directed by Vineeth Kumar, Dear Friend is written by Sharfu, Suhas and Arjun Lal. Justin Varghese composed the music of the film and Shyju Khalid headed the cinematography department.
In a way, Netflix beautifully empowered a film as small and niche as ‘Dear Friend’. The film also exposes the dichotomy of weighing films on the scale of its box-office returns as more and more number of people started appreciating and relating to the film post its streaming release. This makes us think if the film should have directly gone into streaming instead of theatres. Netflix would also have promoted the film better (Minnal Murali promotions flashbacks). The distribution losses could’ve also been avoided. Nevertheless, better late than never. Quite luckily and hopefully it doesn’t take too long for the audience to give Dear Friend its full due unlike Tamasha. Dear Friend is now streaming on Netflix India.