'Rekha' review: Vincy Aloshious soars in minimalist revenge drama
Jithin Issac Thomas’ second feature-length film Rekha sounds like one of the many twisted tales narrated by his main character from his debut feature, Attention Please. The setting is Kasaragod, and the makers were wise enough to keep English subtitles. Despite being someone from the Malabar region, I had to look at the translation below to comprehend some of the characters’ lines.
The first film that comes to mind when I think of Kasaragod is Thinkalazhcha Nishchayam, and for a while there, Rekha moves with a kind of pace and tone that makes one assume that it’s going to be another one like it. But this being a Jithin Issac Thomas film, anything can happen. I mean, this is the same guy who made the segment ‘Pra. Thoo. Mu’ from the anthology Freedom Fight. If you think you are getting a feel-good film, think again. Even if that were his intention, I believe he’ll make sure you get very uncomfortable first.
The star and USP of Rekha are Vincy Aloshious playing the titular tomboyish woman in love with Arjun, an unemployed young man from the neighbourhood, played by the gifted Unni Lalu, who essayed the rebellious protagonist from ‘Pra. Thoo. Mu’. The lion’s share of Rekha’s pre-interval portions sets up the romance between the two while giving us a sense of the neighbourhood—its sights, sounds, the homes of Rekha and Arjun, their neighbours, the mundane small talk comprising subjects irrelevant and insignificant to an outsider but a big deal for these people.
When you have characters exchange banter in their own dialect, peppered with their own quirks, you sit there soaking it all in. It’s just the little things—an argument about a hen laying eggs in the next home, an attempt to retrieve a metal vessel that has fallen into the well, a local member moonlighting as a broker... In the meantime, we get a bit of background about Rekha. She has been to a sports school and is prepping for PSC. Only one of these details would turn useful at a crucial juncture in her life.
There is an immersive quality to the visual and sound design, notwithstanding the minimalist approach. Director of photography Abraham Joseph, who made a mark in Kumari, fills the atmosphere with enough grit and menace. The closing nighttime stretch in a deserted Kochi street has an otherwordly quality while being careful not to make every frame look pretty.
One of the film’s most notable sequences has the main couple engaged in a phone text interaction before they video call each other. We have seen the onscreen chatbox display approach before, but if I recall correctly, the actors’ voices ‘reading out’ their respective messages while their lips don’t move is a first. Impatient viewers might find such a thing cumbersome, but there is a seemingly good reason for Jithin to extend these digital interactions.
Another scene has Arjun barging into Rekha’s home unannounced in the hope of making love. This moment is remarkably staged, with Vincy superbly portraying Rekha’s concerns about discovery and apprehension at making physical contact for the first time. For a while, you think it’s all so sweet until this clandestine rendezvous’ true and twisted implications become apparent much later.
Unlike Attention Please, Rekha manages to venture outside the main characters’ setting after a point—when it morphs into an intense revenge thriller after Rekha discovers an act of injustice. When Arjun goes on the run, she is devastated. Jithin, who has in his last two films shown a penchant for conveying a character’s troubled state of mind through masterful editing, portrays some of Rekha’s most turbulent episodes similarly, with intercuts, blurs, and surreal imagery.
When Rekha finally goes into avenger mode, the film brings the promise of severe retribution, be it the way she deals with Arjun or any other sicko she meets along the way. And, in any film featuring characters with deviant behaviour, unsettling situations go with the territory. But unlike this week’s other release, Christopher, these are not too disturbing as Rekha is a film where fate favours the woman more. However, if you are a pet lover, the offscreen murder of a dog might shake you.
Rekha is not an easy film to watch. However, the protagonist’s ‘sports background’ offers a comforting cushion in several situations of peril for the once-naive woman who got into a relationship because she was bothered by all her ‘taken’ friends. I found the third act chase stretched out more than necessary; perhaps Jithin wanted to present a stark contrast to the elongated lovey-dovey portions I mentioned earlier. The sustained tension works in most places, but at the same time, there was the nagging feeling that perhaps taking out 15 mins could’ve made the third act tighter and more engaging.
As the end credits rolled, I remembered that Valentine’s Day arrives in four days. Perhaps Rekha was intended as a cautionary tale for those desperate to get into a relationship to show others that they also “have a line.” Tread carefully, young ones.
Film: Rekha
Director: Jithin Issac Thomas
Cast: Vincy Aloshious, Unni Lalu
Rating: 3.5/5