This Geetu Mohandas directorial takes you through a whirlwind of raw emotions.
Teenager Mulla reaches Mumbai in search of his long lost older brother, Akbar, hoping to find brotherly affection. What the Mulla finds is a rotten city and a bunch of people who could give sewer rats stiff competition.
Soon enough, we get introduced to the protagonist, Akbar, portrayed by Nivin Pauly with a grisly, commendable performance.
Akbar is neither a day saver nor anti-hero, he’s just another human being who has lost his soul in the city. The question you are asked: “Did you really expect a good man from
the city’s dark underbelly?”
The movie then takes a backtrack and shows the innocent and conservative family of Akbar and Mulla, and how the former’s unconventional love took the family to doom.
It is commendable that an actor of Nivin Pauly’s stature took up a character that is so complex and haunting. It’s easily his best performance to date.
The third act takes you back to the city and reveals how Mulla is destined to be the outcast the city is desperately looking for.
The performance of the child actor portraying Mulla is breathtaking and the director must have had a big role in extracting it.
The film’s courage must have prompted Anurag Kashyap to co-produce it.
Geetu Mohandas excels at capturing the fragility of humans through the many dilemmas of sexuality, identity and life itself.