Ponman Movie Review : Ponman is cinematic gold with its brilliant script, acting, direction

Story: PP Ajesh's business is to give gold to the bride's family and take the money after the wedding in over. But he is in trouble when Steffi's family don't have the money or the gold to return to him

Review: Ponman is a film that will keep you on a mental and emotional high from start to finish. A story about love, relationships and, above all, integrity, and about the rare man who can be valued higher than gold for possessing this integrity, even amidst his fight for basic survival.

An adaptation of GR Indugopan's Nalanchu Cheruppakar, the film marks the directorial debut of art director Jothish Shankar, who won the State Award for Kumbalangi Nights and Android Kunjappan.

When an award-winning art director turns director, you can expect the settings to be above par. But Jotish has gone several steps ahead, in weaving in the nature of his locale so intricately into his story.

Basil plays PP Ajesh, a middleman in a risky wedding gold business in the suburbs of Kollam. When a bride’s family is unable to immediately buy the required gold, he hands over jewellery to them and takes the the cash value of the gold from the money gifted to the bride on the eve of her wedding.

When Steffi Graff’s (Lijo Mol Jose) wedding is fixed to prawn farmer Mariyano, played by Sajin Gopu, her brother, Bruno, is persuaded by friends to take Ajesh’s help to get about 25 sovereign of gold that her mother promised as dowry. But after the wedding when the family cannot pay the money or return the gold, which Mariyano has taken to his house with his bride, Ajesh has to use all his streetsmarts to get it back. But it is not so simple. Steffi isn’t willing to give back the gold and Thalavettichira, where Mariyano belongs to, is known to be a rough area, as is he.

The film’s success is in its ability to keep audiences hooked and curious to know how Ajesh will manage to get his gold back. The suspense and resolution is so clever, it'll have us clapping and then, the writers and director take it a notch higher with a small twist; we can't take it anymore, we just want him to get his gold back. But apart from this, it is the beauty of the characters, and their spirit of survival, that will stay with the audience after the movie is over.

Writers Indugopan and Justin Mathew have done a superb job of creating layered characters - the mother, Steffi, Mariyano, and the several smaller characters - that we love, hate, sympathise and empathise with. And we are given glimpses of Ajesh’s ‘craziness’ early on and so never doubt his almost insane drive to get his gold back. What a well-written character.

The film is also filled with beautiful lines that combine humanity, humour and philosophy, like when a friend, Markhandaya Sharma, tells Bruno about how life is about a balance or when Ajesh tell Bruno about surviving and surging ahead in life. It will having you laughing and move you to tears.

The actors are all at their brilliant best. Basil Joseph brings Ajesh’s pain and grit to life; we want to hug him, be his friend, help him. He is superb. Lijo Mol puts heart into a difficult character. Sajin Gopu, Anand Manmadan, Deepak Parambol have all done their part to bring perfection to their character.

And while Jothish had great material to work with, he has taken the movie to another level with subtle touches: when Steffi admires the gold in a moment of privacy, when Bruno gets a call in a moment of desperation, while he is waiting with Ajesh sleeping in the room, and we don’t hear a word but we just almost know what it is about, and when Ajesh has a final monologue with Steffi. This is cinematic gold.