Grrr and Inside Out 2: Two Films That Will Keep You on the Edge of Your Seat
Grrr movie review: Suraj Venjaramoodu’s ability to effortlessly generate humour from thin air proves invaluable, while Kunchacko Boban, for whom comedy has never been a strong suit, shines in Grrr.
Jay K’s Grrr, starring Kunchacko Boban and Suraj Venjaramoodu in the lead roles, is now running in theatres. It took me a while to realise that director Jay R Krishnan aka Jay K’s latest outing, Grrr, is written as RRR with a “G”. And it does share small-small similarities with SS Rajamouli’s 2022 blockbuster, RRR, starring NT Rama Rao Jr and Ram Charan in the lead roles. Not only do both films feature two heroes but they are also in disagreement for a good part of the narratives. Wild animals also play a key role in both stories and at a crucial juncture, one of the heroes has a face-to-face encounter with a big cat.
However, the “G” is what makes all the difference, and that, I would say, stands for Grrr’s ample gleefulness. Though the two movies aren’t alike in any other ways besides these far-fetched coincidences, this touch of gleefulness combined with hilarious performances by Kunchacko Boban and Suraj Venjaramoodu are what make Grrr an enjoyable and light-hearted watch.
Inside Out 2 movie review: The Inside Out sequel is a winner
If Inside Out needed a sequel, one can’t ask for a better one. Riley (voiced this time by Tallman) is 13, has hit puberty and sprouted a pimple. Joy (Poehler), Anger (Black), Disgust (Lapira), Fear (Hale) and Sadness (Smith) may have been all the band of emotions an 11-year-old felt once. But they are too simple a palette for a pre-teen’s range. Her emotions now are a mix of jumbled new feelings, sloshing around in raging hormones.
These new ones include Anxiety (Hawke), Envy (Edebiri), Embarrassment (Hauser) and Ennui (a very French Exarchopoulos). Anyone with a kid anywhere in the teen spectrum will know it when it sees it, as will any kid living the age.
Can one hold on to one’s ‘Sense of Self’ amidst all this? The feelings at the core of who you are?
In dealing with a much more complex spectrum, Inside Out 2 is superior to the first film, released in 2015. There is conflict here, and a sense of loss and new beginnings. There is a growing-up, and a fitting-in. Love and hurt; selfishness and kindness. A ‘friendship island’ that completely outsizes the ‘family island’ in Riley’s mind is a good example of this change.
Maharaja: A Gripping Thriller with a Dark Sense of Humour
Maharaja movie review: Vijay Sethupathi stands out in Nithilan Saminathan’s almost-there thriller
In his sophomore film, Nithilan Saminathan pronounces the style of filmmaking he wishes to follow, but convenience in the writing and a contrived third act mars this gripping thriller.
A morbid sense of dread tirelessly pulses through the two films that director Nithilan Saminathan has made till now. In these films, even the morally-right get easily corrupted as they face ordinary humans in their most perverse form. In Maharaja, when a group of robbers loot houses and do unspeakable deeds, they don’t miss out on the opportunity to cook themselves a hot meal.
It’s not the ideas or the situations that are meant to grip you, but more by how they are executed; Nithilan meticulously works on the writing to show evil as banally as possible. When the camera introduces us to Selvam (Anurag Kashyap), he’s talking about onions to his friend in the kitchen, with a zoom-out revealing the women who are tied up next to him — a shot reminiscent of the opening of 2017’s Kurangu Bommai, Nithilan’s first film.
This is no mere coincidence; Nithilan consciously rehashes some of his tropes and educates us on the filmmaking style he wishes to follow. He often turns to the uncertainty of life to connect plot points: a ceiling fan might fall on your head, snakes might appear out of nowhere, or a lorry might crash into your house. There is an effort to play on the audiences’ minds by juxtaposing timelines, and a specific object becomes a motif to pivot the story around — like the bag with a monkey face in his first film, there’s a trash can in Maharaja that is meant to pose a question: just because you deem something useless, does it lose its value?
His characters also have unusual idiosyncrasies. A notorious murderer plays street cricket with kids, or like in this film, a gangster, a hard-core fan of Kunal Singh, beats up a man for not watching Punnagai Desam, and for losing the sunglasses that the late actor gifted him (!). Kalki Raja, who played a thief in the first film, returns as a thief named ‘Police’ who steals TVS 50s because… he can’t drive geared vehicles.
Maharaja is yet another sign of the serious filmmaker Nithilan is, and shows us how a good writer can convert even a dated idea into a gripping big-screen experience. Vijay Sethupathi’s performance is awe-inspiring, and he gets under the skin of this fascinating character with ease, delivering quite a few stand-out scenes for us to cherish.
