‘Aby’ is a film that does display tremendous visual craft, and the style is inarguably there. However, beneath all that panache, is a lumbering tale that runs a time-honored route with its wheels falling off along the way.
One gets to see a meadow full of blue spring blooms, as the curtains are raised in Srikant Murali’s ‘Aby’, and a boy runs across it, finally driving a dragonfly, perched on a small flower, onto a flight. As the tiny insect takes to the air, the boy looks at it wonder eyed, spreading his arms sideways and fluttering them as if they were wings.
This remarkable opening frame in ‘Aby’ sends your expectations surging, though it’s a progressive collapse that one witnesses from there on. A bloated, puffy movie that could at best boast of a few brilliant moments here and there, ‘Aby’ takes as much time as its protagonist to pull off its dream, and sadly to a much lesser effect.
Aby, much to the distress of his parents, does neither speak nor hear, and every now and then, jumps off heights, hoping to fly. He grows up to be a young man (Vineeth Sreenivasan) who very rarely opens his mouth, still nurturing the dream that he had always had – to fly. Shunned by his drunkard dad (Sudheer Karamana), Aby leaves Mariyapuram only to return after seven years, with renewed hope and expertise.
While watching ‘Aby’, I couldn’t help but think of that tiny gem from last year, ‘Kochauvva Paulo Ayyapa Coelho’, the Sidharth Siva directed film that talked of a young boy and his ardent desire to fly. What makes the latter film one that managed to strike several heart strings, is its capability to depict the fierceness of this longing, while in ‘Aby’ it remains mostly limited and restrained to a whole lot of word play.
The latter half of the film, sees Aby trying his fortune in a city, far away from Mariyapuram, where he runs across GK (Manish Choudhary), an aircraft designer who has made a mess of his life. Aby clings on to the guy, hoping to learn a lesson or two from him. Santhosh Echikkanam’s script takes a nosedive from this point onwards, and never really recuperates thereafter.
One is not spared the very banal climax that one had fervently hoped would be kept at bay, and ‘Aby’ finally reaches that point in two hours and twelve minutes. A very brief post climatic show that serves more as an onscreen ad for a prominent airline follows, and a dream is realized, all the while making you wish that the film maker’s very obvious creative instincts had found expression in a more animated film.
Vineeth Sreenivasan’s loud, Chaplinesque act as Aby looks more a liability and he leaves us terribly puzzled with his body language that borders between that of a mentally challenged individual and that of a village simpleton. In sharp contrast, the child artiste who plays the younger Aby appears much more credible, so much so that he seems to have grown into a totally different man altogether.
The women folk appear much more persuasive when it comes to their performances and Mareena Michael as Anumol – Aby’s sweetheart – and Vinitha Koshy as his mother, come up with admirable feats. There are also impressive performances from Suraj Venjarammoodu, Aju Varghese, Sudheer Karamana and Manish Choudhary, not forgetting to mention a sturdy cameo by Dileesh Pothen. Sudheer Surendran has crafted some brilliant frames for the film, and the musical score by Bijibal and Jason J Nair has a few delightful tunes. Anil Johnson’s background score is absolutely agreeable, though there are several occasions in the film, where the dialogues get drowned in the score.
‘Aby’ is a film that does display tremendous visual craft, and the style is inarguably there. However, beneath all that panache, is a lumbering tale that runs a time-honored route with its wheels falling off along the way.
Verdict: Average