Ever wondered how it would be to meet your old classmates after 15-20 years ? Gettting to know of their success , failures, joys and sorrows... Although the internet has bought our friends at a hands reach , I think that seeing them in person would be an altogether different feel. That was what that struck me the most after seeing this movie.
For people who are unaware of the movie, Classmates is a recent malayalam movie released for this Onam and is a blockbuster starring Prithviraj , Indrajeeth , Kavya madhavan, Jayasurya, Radhika, Narain , Balachandra Menon and Jagathy Sreekumar. Music in by Alex paul and direction is Lal Jose
The movie starts with the arrival of the students of chemistry batch who passed out during 91-92 from CMS college. They have arrived on the invitation of iyer sir(balachandra menon) and lakshmi teacher whose only son Murali(Narain) died in the final year under mysterious circumstances.Sukumaran (Prithviraj) , a leftist student leader is diamond merchant who has a unsuccessful marriage. Pius George (Indrajeeth) , the college romeo is now working in Dubai with a family consisting of his wife and a daughter. Thara Kurup ( Kavya Madhavan) , the dancer and the lady love of Sukumaran is a famous dancer who runs a dance school and is still unmarried. Satheesan Kanjikuzhi ( Jayasurya) who was an aspiring politician and constantly at loggerheads with Suku is now and MLA of Thodupuzha district. Vaasu ( Vijeesh ) who was dubbed as "Vaalu Vaasu" by Father Vadivelu ( Jagathy Sreekumar) as he is always an assistant to Satheesan and his right hand is still Vaalu to the MLA. Raziya (Radhika) who was nicknamed as "Penguin" comes to attend the re-union on the condition that nobody should ask her about the passed years . All goes well with everybody remembering Murali , who was the college singer and the peacemaker between Suku and Satheesh. It was his wish that everybody should meet after 10-15 years to find out how the others are doing.
But on the night of the re-union , Pius finds his close buddy Suku strangled with Murali's guitar wire and admits him to a hospital where he is struggling for his wife. Police views it as a suicide attempt after reading his diary excerpts. But Iyer Sir is not convinced and he talks to Pius and asks him to relate the incidents in their college days. The film then moves to past and present in parts. From the flashback, we get to know that Satheesan and Thara have an axe to grind against Suku and Iyer Sir confronts them . But both reply that they are not responsible for this and explain their reasons to come to re-union , to apologise to Suku . Then who is the murderer and what is the motive behind forms the rest of the story leading to some unexpected twists.
Prithviraj and Indrajith have performed their roles with ease and the camaraderie between them is evident throughout the movie.I enjoyed the sequence where Indrajith reads out Kavya's letter to Prithvi aloud and Prithvi's reactions. Indrajith has good comedy timing.
Narain looks smart and gives a neat perfomance.I read that the role offered to Narain was initially offered to Kunchacko Boban and he turned down the role due to prior commitments. Costly mistake , poor guy! Jayasurya has also been given a meaty role which he relished .
This is a role Kavya has done many times and she sleepwalks through the role. She shares a good chemistry with Prithviraj. Radhika has done really well for a newcomer. She had got all the expressions right.
Other supporting artistes like Balachandra Menon and Jagathy have performed what is expected out of them. Music by Alex Paul is good with melodious songs. My personal favorites are Ende Khalbile (Male Version) , Kathirunna Penn alle and Zindabaad.
Direction by Lal Jose is excellent.I liked the way he fashioned the sequences such that passing comments and actions of the characters take an entirely different sense from the narration of the culprit.He has a interesting story with unpredictabletwists and coupled with good perfomance and music , he has proved that any movie's success depends on the story and direction alone and not entirely on the actors.
