Backpackers Review : ​Backpackers: A romance without life

Story: Terminal cancer patients Khaleel and Daya fall in love. Can their love see them through their tough phases

Review: What would you do if you knew you only have a few more months to live; how would you spend your last days on earth and with whom? These are the questions that writer-director Jayaraj brings up in his Backpackers, a film inspired from a true story.

The young protagonists, played by Kalidas Jayaram and newbie Karthika Nair, portray cancer patients who meet in a hospital and fall in love. It is not exactly the most original scenario; we’ve seen this from Mani Ratnam’s 1989-film Geethanjali to the 2014 Hollywood The Fault In Our Stars, to name a few. We can understand why filmmakers like the premise; what can be more poignant than love that could be snuffed out when it is at its most romantic and youthful.

Khaleel and Daya decide to embrace a bohemian lifestyle and live their last few months without a care in the world. They elope from the control of their families - surprisingly, boorish and goonda-like on both sides - and live without monetary or social constraints, and with the support of a few kindly people they meet along the way. It’s a cute idea and the picture of a bohemian lifestyle was a hit in Dulquer Salmaan-starrer Charlie. But despite heartbreak waiting around the corner and a readymade chance to win audiences over with a tearjerker, Backpackers fails to really strike a chord. The movie is so slow - even the songs - and so thin of a storyline, that the actors struggle to keep the audiences’ attention even at just about 95 minutes length. Elements of drama are introduced via the controlling families feel forced. It’s a pity, because the good acting talent seems to go to waste.