Film: Life of Josutty
Direction: Jeethu Joseph
Cast: Dileep, Rachana, Jyothi Krishna, Aqsa Bhatt
Drishyam was the biggest money minter in the history of Mollywood. It remains the masterpiece of Jeethu Joseph till date. He was quite busy in the recent past remaking his super hit film in other languages. The success of Drishyam had indeed raised expectations on Life of Josutty. Unlike his past films which belonged to thriller or comedy genres, Josutty is a family drama which portraits a man’s life. Except Mummy and Me (in 2010), all his films were scripted by Jeethu himself. For Mummy and Me he paired up with Sanjay Bobby for story and screenplay. In Josutty, the ace director dons the hat only of a director. He borrowed story from Jayalal Menon and script from Rajesh Varma.
Set in Kattappana in Idukki, Life of Josutty opens with the narration of Josutty (Dileep). Josutty believes life is a notebook and the people who he meets its chapters. He is naive enough to try and understand the world by stepping into the shoes of others. His desire is to become a priest. But eventually he falls in love with Jessy (Rachana), his neighbour. Josutty is a sixth standard dropout. This disqualification becomes a stumbling block for him to marry her. Yielding to the pressure from his friends and relatives, he agrees to marry Rose (Jyothi Krishna), who is a divorcee and a nurse in New Zealand. Upon reaching New Zealand, the life of Josutty turns upside down. All of a sudden, he realises that everything he had believed to be true throughout life was wrong and he vows to live life to the fullest.
The film is monotonous till the end. The flow is smooth in the first half which is made interesting with comic sequences. In the second half, it takes more time to narrate the story, hence lags.
We have seen the plight of an uneducated villager trapped in a foreign land in a Malayalam cinema sometime ago. Even Dileep had done this in Spanish Masala. The tribulations of a husband who depends on wife was the theme in Mammootty-starrer Kadal Kadannu Oru Maathukutty. Both the themes, in a way, have combined in Josutty. Hence we feel some sequences cliched. There are standalone scenes like the one in which Dileep breaks down when he hears the news of his father’s death and Jyothi Krishna confesses her mistake. But due to the employment of too much drama, some scenes have failed to strike the right chord with the audience. The merging of computer graphic images with real ones (in the beginning, when Josutty lands in New Zealand and in the end) is done in a crafty manner by the director. Cinematographer Ravichandran offers us some lovely visuals.
Though Dileep has done justice to the role, he can be given only a pass mark. Performance of Rachana (though the character was diluted in the second part) and Hareesh Perady (as Josutty’s father) is commendable. Life of Josutty is a family drama without any novelty. The makers of the film were honest while giving the tagline -- No Twist, No Suspense, Only a Life. But the Life of Josutty is not curious enough, yet watchable.