Following Lonappante Mamodeesa, Jayaram will be seen in a comical entertainer titled My Great Grandfather, which will have the actor playing a man in his 40s looking to marry a woman many years younger than him.
The film, directed by Aneesh Anwar and produced by Haseeb Haneef, is expected to arrive in theatres this Eid. The trailer was released a few days ago. Shani Kader has scripted the film. Speaking on the subject, Aneesh says it’s a “comedy of errors” which has multiple characters running into each other. “Jayaram’s character is about to marry a much younger girl and that’s when another young girl shows up one day. The second girl could be his daughter or not. It’s this question that the rest of the film tries to find an answer to.”
The female leads are played by Divya Pillai and Surabhi Santosh. The rest of the cast includes Baburaj, Salim Kumar, Baiju, Johny Antony, Ramesh Pisharody and Vijayaraghavan.
Aneesh tells us the team has approached the subject in a way that will be digestible for Malayali audiences. “It’s a story that takes place in Kerala, as such situations can happen here too. It’s also a tale of friendships and the adorable bond between Jayaram’s character and a little boy.”
My Great Grandfather is Aneesh’s follow-up to Basheerinte Premalekanam starring Farhaan Faasil. This is the first time that the Thalassery-born director is dabbling in a full-fledged comedy. “It’s a genre I explored a little bit in Basheerinte Premalekanam and Zakariyayude Garbinikal but this is the first one where I went a little further,” says Aneesh, who made his directorial debut with Mullamottum Munthiricharum and has since then tried his hand at various genres, including a thriller called Kumbasaram starring Jayasurya.
Aneesh hopes to experiment with more genres in the future but acknowledges the challenges faced by a Malayali filmmaker when dealing with unconventional subjects.
“I don’t want to be pigeonholed. It’s all a matter of finding the right production house, like-minded actors, the right audience, and the necessary amount of screens,” he says.