Mughizh(Tamil, Netflix)
Directed by Kartik Swaminathan
Rating: ** ½
At 62 minutes Mughizh seems a lot longer,probably so because it tries to say more about bereavement, acceptable and mortality than it is able to.
It’s a simple film , told in a language that is not spoken. The language of the heart flows out of the storytelling. But there is little here on grief and its acceptance that could even remotely be described as far-reaching and reverberant.
The set-up is as unadorned as it comes. There is a husband and a wife, played well by Vijay Sethupathi and Regina Cassandra(the latter actually works harder on her part than the undertaking warrants). And there is their 10-year daughter Kavya played by Sethupathi’s real-life daughter Sreeja who is a bit of sulker.
Kavya says fashionable generation-challenged things like “Don’t judge, Ma,” which she has probably heard in American films that she probably watches while her parents away.(Where do they go? I don’t know!).
At first little Kavya hates pets, and recoils from their company. Once Scoobie(that’s the doggie’s name) arrives he has the entire family eating out of its hands.
While the slim film fits in well with the concept a family drama, the direction is too selfconsciously casual.Sometimes the absence of drama and even a background score just seems lazy.The languid pace and the conversational dialogues suggest that the actors had more to do with the natural tone of the conversations than the people from behind the scenes who wrote those dialogues.
Indeed, there is little to carp about in Mughizh.It is a large-hearted film. But it doesn’t really know how to fill up those spaces in the heart. Though Sethupathi and Cassandra perform with ease individually , as q couple they see don’t seem compatible. This could have something to do with the way the camera(Sathya Ponmar) captures them in reposeful mid-shots: she lounging on the sofa, he on the centre-table placed next to the sofa to ensure their lives look lived-in.But even the furniture placement looks rigged in this naturalistic drama.
Strangely Sethupathi’s conversations with his daughter sound more like whatsapp messages than a real father-daughter bonding on camera. Director Karthik Swaminathan has given us what can be at best described as a well-meaning misfire. If only the talented lead players were given more to chew on then conversations about being selfless in love.
And for the record, bereavement is not only about losing someone dear. It’s also about never finding the person that you love. Mughizh is eager to find the core of humanism and mutual empathy in the nuclear family. But it can’t go beyond the gleaming surface, too afraid and too inexperienced to go any deeper.
