Movie Review: Joji (2021) Malayalam

We watched Dileesh Pothan/Farhadh Fasil’s ‘Joji’, a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth last weekend, and while it's nowhere close to Pothans other masterpieces like ‘Maheshinthe Pathikaaram’, it’s a decent watch. It’s nowhere close to the best Hindi movie adaptation of Macbeth IMO, Vishal Bhardwaj’s ‘Maqbool’, but it’s a compelling watch, mostly due to Farhadh.

Joji (Farhadh) weaves the story of a slothful son of a rich, abusive coffee plantation owner Kuttapan, who has his three adult sons, all well under his control who runs his affairs with an iron fist. Joji is the lazy, scheming, unmarried son, who has dropped out of engineering and is dreaming up quick get rich schemes, but at the same time is steals from his father for his basic necessities and his business ideas.

He’s literally sleeping all day in his room after getting fed by his sister-in-law Bincy and only getting up to harass his teenage nephew and his obligatory smokes. He’s terrified of his father, who compared to the puny Joji, is built like an ox and has no compunctions with physically abusing his adult children. Joji hates living under his father’s shadow, but he has no recourse, except to vent his frustrations by punching and kicking into thin air.

Kuttapan suffers a stroke when helping his workers dig a well and is relegated to a paralyzed state, after almost losing his life post his stroke. Joji plans the murder of his father, to claim his share of the inheritance, and this sets of a series of unfortunate events that he can’t really control but is forced to react to cover his actions. Bincy, his sister-in-law is a silent witness to his machinations.

I watched this movie primarily because I’m a Farhadh Fasil fan and loved his work in movies like Kumbalangi Nights, Mahesinthe Paristhanam, 21 Female Kottayam, C you Soon, and a few others. He’s like a chameleon, who adapts to the character that he’s playing perfectly, someone who is in the same league as Nawaz Siddiqui, Manoj Bajpai, Aamir Khan, Rajkumar Rao, all actors who are on top of their games at most times. As Joji, he seems like a loaded gun that’s about to go off any second, constantly on the edge, his eyes plotting and scheming constantly. The underlying dark humor comes is provided by the local priest, who is fanatical about sticking to antiquated customs, and the eldest son Jomon, whose over-exuberant devotion to his father is demonstrated by him in questionable ways.

As I said earlier, not a compelling, but decent watch.

4 out of five stars.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13206926/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_1