Amazon’s latest Malayalam direct to OTT release ‘Halal Love Story’ has been garnering attention from Mollywood followers worldwide. This film which was announced barely two weeks back has now grabbed the attention of the South Indian Film Industry for two reasons – the funny, yet realistic subject matter and the director.
The story follows a group of men who are trying to create a film which their film loving community can enjoy. All three men (the main actor, script writer and showrunner) follow the religion of Islam and have some certain ideologies, and they hope to create a film that will not affect the sensitivities of their religion. The trio face an issue when their film director turns out to be a man who doesn’t care about any of these things except, the creation of his art, his film. This followed by their producer messing around with their budget, all parties involved go stir crazy, affecting the project in a massive way.
This film is supposed to be a family comedy, which will help normal audience members to understand the issues that happen on set during a film. This literal opening up of dialogue by the screenwriter/director Zakariaya Mohammad highlights his genius. This is what Zakariya does. In his previous film ‘Sudani from Nigeria’, what was perceived to be a sports movie, turned out to be a family-comedy set in the backdrop of a sporting event. Similarly, ‘Halal Love Story’ is also another family-comedy set in the backdrop of a film production film.
In Kerala, or rather in India really, most films watched by children are with their families. Creating content that is family friendly as well as funny at the same time, is a smart way to expand one’s audience, but to keep their attention from start to finish requires the prowess of a cinematic genius. Of course, Zakariya only has one good movie under his belt, so calling him a genius is a slight stretch of the imagination, but he is on the right track on being one and we hope to see that genius in action in this upcoming film as well.