The Pandemic of Mediocre Cinema

While the content of a story is central to the quality of a film, the elusive art of how you tell a story still decides the effectiveness of cinema. In Memento, Nolan places the audience along with the protagonist suffering from short term amnesia by splitting the story into two timelines and showing one of them in reverse. The audience, much like the protagonist, struggles to keep up with the events piling on to a vulnerable state of mind.

What better way is there to tell the story of naive optimism of making it big in the Hollywood entertainment industry than a musical. La La Land weaves a tale of dreams, love and ambition through its musical sequences, and makes the music more scarce towards the second half of the film as reality hits the central characters.

Even the most interesting story can fall flat with the wrong method of storytelling, and a bad story can be elevated to new dimensions if told with purpose. This is where C U Soon becomes transparent and the lack of purpose becomes evident to the audience.

A perfect example of current passable and mediocre movies, C U Soon stays well within the safety of stardom, hopes that a gimmick of a narrative technique hides the gaping flaws in the script and prays nobody notices the underdeveloped characters. It dishes out whatever is needed for the online fans who yell "Brilliance" at every shot and gives a long-pending fix of relevance to the stars.

Story on a desktop

C U Soon is entirely shot using the screens of devices like a laptop or a mobile phone. While this may seem innovative within the confines of Malayalam film industry, it is a well-established method of filmmaking where a specific effect is desired. This is most famously used in the episode of Modern Family titles "Connection Lost", where the entire episode happens within the desktop of the lead character Claire. The drama and comedy are supported by the different interactions with her family members via FaceTime, and technology is a major element that takes the story forward. It is also a really cool piece of product placement. This method has been used in independent flicks like E-Demon, where the distance between the central characters is a prominent source of horror and their helplessness.

In C U Soon, what purpose is being served by presenting the entire movie on a desktop screen? Is this the best way to tell this story? It is not even consistent, as it shows different points of view using different screens, leaving the audience confused. Other than being a gimmick, and a lame excuse of a filming process during Covid-19, C U Soon remains another "brilliance" bait for the fans in the social media forums.

Undercooked Characters

Roshan Mathews plays Jimmy - an affluent male who falls for a girl on Tinder and proposes to her after a week. That's it. Apart from being a slightly womanizing jerk, we do not know anything about Roshan's character. We lose any interest in him within the first fifteen minutes of the film. You cannot expect the audience to root for such a character, who is also given a lot of screen time.

"entha mwoloose, jaadayano?"

Fahad Fasil plays Kevin - a stock Fahad Fasil character. Savvy, arrogant tech guy, who is somehow ignorant enough to call a female co-worker a 'bitch' while on an official video call without any consequences. For an industry that apparently thrives on 'realism', the filmmaker should at least do some basic research on POSH in workplaces and what would happen if something like that happens in real life. Kevin's pointless toxicity diverts the audience's attention away from the plot. What difference does it make to the story if he is a misogynistic jerk? I guess the 'Complete Actor 2.0' needs to be given enough 'scope' to 'act'.

"i'm going to break all conventional concepts of misogyny!"

I was baffled by Amalda Liz' character - Sanjana. After being humiliated and called a 'bitch' in front of her colleagues, within minutes, we see her helping Kevin and asking him if she needs to cook for him. Why on earth would any self-respecting woman take that kind of crap from anyone? Is the movie unintentionally normalizing toxic masculinity?

The minuscule redeeming factor

In spite of being cast in such a hollow movie, Darshana Rajendran's talent shines through this fog of mediocrity. If this film offers any human moment, its when Darshana's character Anumol is on screen. As a victim of human trafficking, her performance gives us a raw impression of a helpless girl stuck in a foreign land, having to explain if she is in love with Jimmy or did she just use him to escape slavery. I would say, to hell with Jimmy. Its sad that she didn't get the screen time her talent or her character deserved.

Rejoice, for the new addition to the trash pile of passable movies is here. Our need to praise yet another movie is satisfied, our ignorance is sated, social media is happy and the actors are happy.

Rating: The delusional confidence you get when you dangle a mask on your left ear and then decide to take a stroll through Ernakulam market.