During Mollywood’s previous dip in quality film content, at a time when quality Malayalam films were becoming rarer and rarer and before the turn of the decade (by 2010) started ushering in cinematic brilliance (in Mollywood at least) – Mohanlal’s ‘Thanmathra’ was one of those rare films that maintains its class during a time of crowd-pleasing, average Malayalam films which were released during the late-90s and 2000s. This Malayalam drama was written and directed by Blessy, a man known for creating cinematic excellence, the aforementioned film included. ‘Thanmathra’ was based on Padmarajan’s short story, ‘Orma’.
Released in 2005, during a time when Hollywood was slowly introducing Superheros, Bollywood was still giving us old-school Shah Rukh Khan films which were slowly losing their charm, Mohanlal dropped a film completely different from his latest turn of action-drama-comedy flicks, which made him a household name and that film, ‘Thanmathra’, made him an even bigger household name literally hours after its release. It almost makes one believe that an actor of his prowess is wasted on action flicks, but the man is excellent at dialogue delivery as well, so it’s kind of pointless to suggest that even. This movie proved that there is nothing this man can’t do.
Of course, if you are a Malayali, then you already know this film, and this movie was always a “Known Gem”. But the fact that it is still not as big as it should be in India when compared to other Malayalam films like ‘Drishyam’, its sequel, ‘CU Soon’ among others can and should be considered a travesty; hence making this film – a part of the “Hidden Gems” list. The movie has a brilliant script and is directed well, but any actor worth his/her salt will be taking lessons from this Masterclass of an acting session from Mohanlal.
Okay, that’s enough waxing lyrical of the actor. We have given an idea of how good the actor Mohanlal is and how good he is in this film. So let’s skip to the synopsis. This movie is about a family of four. The father, Rameshan (portrayed by Mohanlal) has a good bond with the other three members of the family (his wife, son and daughter), being the main unit, keeping them all close together. When the family finds out that Rameshan has Alzheimer’s disease, they have to come together for their father’s sake.
Mohanlal’s ‘Thanmathra‘ is currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar.
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