‘Theevram’ has been garnering attention as soon as the film was announced, being the next flick of Dulquar Salman, who has had a dashing success through ‘Usthad Hotel’. As the film hits screens today, Roopesh Peethambaran, who wrote the screenplay and wielded the megaphone for the movie, opens up.
Roopesh describes ‘Theevram’ as ‘an expression of one’s intense feelings’. The director says, “The thread of the movie was inspired by a news piece I read some years ago. It was about a gruesome incident and as soon as I read the news, I was enraged. That prompted me to think about the reactions that an ordinary person may have about our system, and from that I developed the story about Harshavardhan, the protagonist, who is a music composer by profession.”
Roopesh says the film is a ‘fast-paced thriller’, keeping in pace with the present trend. He confesses that initially when he wrote the screenplay, it appeared a bit cliched. “It is no wonder that the filmmakers I approached refused to take up the movie,” says Roopesh who reveals that it was director Anwar Rasheed who asked him to rewrite the script. “Now I feel the strength of the film lies in its presentation.”
Regarding roping in Dulquar Salman to do the role, Roopesh says, “I wanted a new actor, for whom there is no set image to do the role of Harshavardhan. While some actors whom I approached were not ready to take up the risk, Dulquar who had an instant liking for the subject, readily agreed.” Roopesh, a corporate film-maker based in Bangalore, has had a fleeting stint in films as he had acted as the young Mohanlal in ‘Spadikam’ in 1995.
While Chennai based actress Shika Nair is the lead lady of the film, Sreenivasan, Vishnu Raghav, Janardhanan, Vinay Forrt, Riya Saira (‘22 FK’ fame) are the other actors. Sreenivasan acts as a police officer in the film which was mainly shot in Kochi.
Roby Abraham is the music director of the film, who stepped into films with ‘Friday’. There are four songs penned by Rafeeq Ahmad and Arun K Narayanan sung by Vineeth Sreenivasan, Vijay Yesudas, Deepak Kutty, Roby Abraham and Swetha Mohan. While cinematography is by Hari Nair, Kapil Gopalakrishnan is the editor. The film is produced by V C Ismayil under the banner of VCI Movies.