Vellam is basically Murali’s staring contest with his next glass, with little else going on.Malayalam film Vellam: The Essential Drink starring Jayasurya released today, on January 22. It’s just that he is far more endearing drunk than sober. It’s not that we don’t believe in his change. Murali is more convincing (and relatable) as an alcoholic than as a businessman. He didn’t have to go to a de-addiction center if homilies about responsibility could fix his problem.īecause sequences that depict the way Murali returns to normalcy are presented as montages, they don’t have the specificity or detail of scenes that depict his drunkenness. For a film that lovingly chronicles the many ‘cuttings’ Murali has at different locations, it spends very little time showing how he becomes de-addicted. You’d think that the only reliable way to reform someone was to scare and shame them as individuals worthless to society-basically, shock treatment. Subrahmanyam (Siddique) who runs the rehabilitation center lashes out at Murali for breaking his vow not to drink, it runs against the grain of the film. So, in a film that takes an enlightened view of addiction, when Dr. Prajesh recognizes that alcohol can be helpful. The song that plays in the bar is about unrequited love: like Murali’s own. But Vellam isn’t a film that celebrates drinking. There’s a scene where Murali helps girls above the drinking age get a drink at a bar that won’t serve women. A character in the film even says that there’s nothing wrong with alcohol as long as it doesn’t run (and ruin) your life. What keeps it watchable, apart from Jayasurya, is the film’s take on alcoholism: it’s a problem but it’s not a vice. Like Murali’s see-saw between sobriety and drunkenness, most of the film is spent swinging the audience from pitying him to feeling hopeful about him. This tennis match between his self-awareness (when sober) and thickheadedness (after a drink) is interesting at first, but Prajesh has no variations to his Murali-makes-up-his-mind-but-breaks-at-the-sight-of-a-bottle theme. Scenes that show Murali’s tedium without the thrill of drink and his involuntary visualizations of partying with friends show how his habit creeps up on him in unexpected ways until the pressure explodes-and he breaks. A friend takes pity on him and helps him with just that.Īnd so, Murali gets high - up on the mountains, this time - and checks into a de-addiction center. He has a wife (Samyuktha Menon) and a daughter, after all. What no one tells him is, how? In moments like these, you think that Murali might get better if only he had access to scientific treatment. It’s in this stretch that we get dialogues where Murali says - with tears held back by alcohol-induced dehydration - that it’s not like he doesn’t understand it when people ask him to quit. Can he use it to reform himself? An interesting thread throughout the film is how director Prajesh Sen toys with the limits of Murali’s self-awareness.Īt times, it looks like he is in control and might be able to fix his problem. He exhibits a degree of self-awareness that’s visible to us. But Murali is not a goner (even though he steals from his own house). In the early parts of the film, he looks perpetually dazed and stumbles appropriately through his performance. And his presence makes the film watchable. In Vellam, Jayasurya plays Murali, a hopeless alcoholic who spends each sober moment looking for a drink or finding money for it.
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