- Director Abhinav Sunder Nayak returns with Mollywood Times focused on filmmaking struggles
- The film follows Vineeth Madhavan's journey to become a young horror movie director in Kerala
- Mollywood Times uses slow-paced screenplay with repeated conflicts and mixed execution
It's not the first time that a movie has been made about the film industry and the challenges and struggles that upcoming filmmakers face in their journey. Director Abhinav Sunder Nayak, who made a brilliant debut with Mukundan Unni Associates in 2022, is back with Mollywood Times, which centres exactly on this theme.
Interestingly, Nayak made his entry into cinema as an AD to actor-director Vineeth Sreenivasan, who made a similarly themed film titled Varshangalkku Shesham (2024).
As a child, Vineeth Madhavan (Naslen), who lives in a small Kerala town, is asked by a doctor to figure out his aim when he ends up breaking his hand while reading a horror novel by Vaikom David. Vineeth is piqued by the doctor's homework and believes he has found his aim when he and his friend go to watch The Mummy in the theatre. Vineeth becomes captivated by the DTS sound and how horror movies use it effectively to scare the audience. The obsession with horror movies and the desire to become the youngest horror movie director at 21 take root.
Wanting to beat his director idols like M. Night Shyamalan, Ram Gopal Varma and Martin Scorsese by debuting at a much younger age, Vineeth makes numerous short horror films that earn him fame. But he doesn't anticipate the difficulties he faces at every step of the way. For instance, he enters a short-film competition but the first prize is awarded to Arjun Haridas, who goes on to find success by plagiarising Vineeth's style of filmmaking. In another instance, he is asked to rewrite a script by Vaikom David's son, Sachin, and the movie gets stuck. When he makes his first film, he finds that it is similar to another film that has just been released.
Vineeth slowly starts to feel that the world and people are working against him, and this only fuels his ambition and determination to succeed. An idealistic and arrogant Vineeth tries to get his big breakthrough in the 'bad world' of cinema and he states he is selfish in this endeavour.
But the underdog succeeding is the norm, he learns. And that his fate is not in his hands even if he has made the best Malayalam horror film. Does Vineeth Madhavan overcome the challenges presented by his family, producers, competitors and others in the film industry? Does he write a brilliant script? Does he become a successful horror movie director in Mollywood?
For Mollywood Times, director Abhinav Sunder Nayak has given the tag line 'hate letter to cinema' and he seems to share a love-hate relationship with cinema that he has expressed through the character of Vineeth Madhavan. While the core concept of the film is brilliant, the screenplay and execution are where this dark comedy really stumbles.
Like in Mukundan Unni Associates, Nayak uses certain similar techniques to narrate the story, such as cutaways, voice-overs and the editing style. However, unlike his debut film, Mollywood Times is extremely slow-paced and it truly tests your patience. The screenplay by Ramu Sunil seems jumbled, and the conflict points start to repeat, as do the dialogues and some situations. The experiences and observations narrated in the film come across as those that have possibly been lived by the director and his crew - whether it's about the reviewer, the producer, the audience, the actors or more. Mollywood Times becomes a less satisfying movie than it could actually have been.
Naslen has done a beautiful job in the role of Vineeth Madhavan. Madhavan's confidence, frustration and angst are well essayed and his measured dialogue delivery aids this emotional arc. The transition of college student Vineeth from an aspiring filmmaker who says he is ready to change Mollywood to a disillusioned, weary director who has been affected by innumerable challenges is captured effectively by Naslen and one must applaud him.
There are many characters in the film that resemble Vineeth Sreenivasan, Sharafudheen, Basil Joseph and Sangeeth Prathap, who add value to this dark comedy and bring in different elements of the film world through their roles. The music by Jakes Bejoy is offbeat; he has used slightly novel elements in the BGM to give it more novelty, and it works well. The cinematography by Viswajith Odukkathil is par for the course, as is the editing by Abhinav Sunder Nayak and Nidhin Raj Arol.
Mollywood Times presents a philosophical look at the film industry and how ambitions alone are not enough to make you successful. Abhinav Sunder Nayak's second outing is not as brilliant as his first, but like Vaikom David says in the film, reputation is everything, and Nayak has established a reputation as a talented director who prefers to take the path less travelled in his films.