If you have not heard the name, you have missed some of the best movies that have come out of India in recent years. This week’s movie review won’t be complete without introducing Fahadh Faasil. The actor and producer who mostly does Malayalam and Tamil films has impressed me in all his roles. And one search through his Wikipedia will show it’s not only me fanboying over one of the most versatile actors in Indian cinema today. Faasil is not the typical Indian cinema ‘hero’. He is an actor par excellence who takes ownership of the characters he is playing and relives their lives on screen. He does not need to show skin, copy Michael Jackson moves and fight Kung Fu to make his mark. Having done more than 50 films so far, Fahadh’s “Irul”, “Kumbalangi Nights,” “Joji” and “Malik” are some of the unmissable names from his filmography. Some of the more adventurous audience members will probably remember him from the South Indian mainstream blockbusters “Pushpa” and “Vikram.” Within the few films named, Faasil shows he can play lead roles, supporting roles, protagonist, antagonist and comic relief as well.

In his latest movie “Malayankunju”—a Malayalam-language survival thriller—Faasil plays Anil or Anikuttan, a handyman in a small village in Kerala. Anikuttaan lives on a rubber plantation with his mother Shanthamma (Jaya S Kurup) and repairs small electric stuff for village folks.

From the very beginning, the audience is shown that Anil is not mentally stable. He gets irritated quickly, has an aversion to any sort of noise and is a blatant casteist. He hates a particular community, including his neighbors, and does not shy from showing it openly. We also learn that Anil has had a deeply traumatic past incident— which could be one reason behind his present condition. But some parts of the film also establish him as a man with a conscience and friendly to those he likes. Anil is a multi-layered character that drives the film forward. Directed by Sajimon Prabhakar and written by Mahesh Narayanan, Malayankunj starts like a family drama and then transgresses into a panic-inducing survivor film that flips the storyline and changes how we look at the main character. While Anil lives a life of resentment and over-confidence, a flash flood in his area completely destroys his chosen way of life. He wakes up one day to find himself buried deep under the debris of his own house. Getting out of there and also saving a baby he has hated for so long because of her crying and her parents’ caste now becomes his mission in life. Malayankunj is not a high-budget survival film with plenty of VFX generated dramatic sequences. There is some amount of low budget CGI but the film mostly rests on Faasil’s acting, the screenplay and Mahesh Narayanan’s cinematography. From about half way, these three nearly take over the screen. Anil’s struggle and desperation are captured with the most realistic set of moving images on-screen. I cannot think of one name from mainstream Bollywood who could replace Faasil as Anil. So I hope there are no remakes of this one. I love the cinematography of Malayakunj for the way it uses the lights in its storytelling. Anil is buried in debris in an underground cave-like structure and it’s probably dark outside. So how do the camerapersons capture him for the audience? They use two different lights—one a powerful torch and other a car headlight—which have appeared in the film before. Now with only Anil on the screen, these two light sources, one after the other, become the film’s characters. Amazing stuff. The background music—which borderlines trance and psychedelic at times—also seamlessly syncs with what’s happening in the film. I looked up the music director and found A.R Rahman’s name in the credits, without a big surprise. Who should watch it? Malayankunj is a brilliant film. I know that watching a Malayalam film with English subtitles comes with its own set of challenges and there’s a chance that the context is lost in some instances. It will still be worth every movie-lover’s time spending a couple of hours on this film. Genre: Drama/thriller Rating: 4 stars Actors: Fahadh Faasil Director: Sajimon Prabhakar Run time: 1hr 54mins