I’d be surprised if I were to be told that writers Thamby and Joseph Vijeesh chose the traditional writing method to come up with their charming first film.
In this method, writers usually choose to work on an elaborate synopsis which is then broken down into an even more detailed scene order. Which means that when they begin to write the first scene, they already know the film’s climax and the path the screenplay must take to get you there in an engaging manner.
In contrast, the charm of Avaraachan & Sons comes from its peculiar meandering quality. More than unpredictability, there’s an intended cluelessness about what’s going to happen to Avaraachan (Biju Menon) and the erratic manner in which life will begin to make sense for a man as erratic as Avaraachan. This stream of consciousness writing style helps in great deal to help us understand a character like Avaraachan. Not only is he a low functioning alcoholic that goes against the stereotypical family man from our movies but he comes across as someone who has even given up on himself.
Take the sequence in which Avaraachan decides to get admitted into a de-addiction centre in Karnataka. While he’s there, he meets a man named Pavithran (Johny Anthony) who appears to be a mirror image of the person Avaraachan himself has become. Pavithran is an alcoholic too and when he’s found dead one day with no one to claim his body, it acts like a wakeup call for Avaraachan to begin his redemption journey. In a lesser film, this scene is perhaps enough to justify the narrative logic for Avaraachan’s emotional transformation.
But over here, not only does Avaraachan hit the bottle as soon as he returns home, but he must also carry the shame of discovering that he might never be able to transform himself. The lightness of the film might give you the illusion that it’s trivialising serious addiction but the films appears to be more interested in the ups and down that form a part of this difficult journey.
I felt this most strongly in a wonderful scene between Avaraachan and his sister Eliyamma. From a distance, this is the heave duty dramatic event in which Avaraachan asks his sister if she believes he’s been a lousy father to his two sons. You’d anticipate an emotional outburst or a confession that’s meant to cleanse Avaraachan’s soul. But when Eliyamma replies by asking if Avaraachan really wants the truth or if she must lie to make him feel better, he says he’d prefer the latter. The scene ends with laughter, but it manages to provide the catharsis we want without making you feel its impact in the lightest.
It’s a film that’s careful enough to not judge Avaraachan for his escapist ways. Alcohol and drugs have been his way of handling grief and our reading of Avaraachan evolves from useless wastrel to that of a child who never got the chance to grow up. Which is why it feels more accurate to call it a coming-of-age story instead of calling it his redemption. In one sense, it’s as much the story of two sons who’re forced to raise their father.
The film flows organically with characters and sub-plots that appear out of nowhere to add something of great significance to Avaraachan’s evolution. Although the film doesn’t spell it out in as many words, it hints at a promise Avaraachan makes to himself wherein he decides to meet his newborn grandson, if and only if Avaraachan regains control over his wayward.
What sticks it all together is the endearing cast which works its magic to make Avaraachan’s transformation play out as gently as it can be. While it feels natural for the film to be compared to Kumbalangi Nights (the film lampshades this by using showing two characters at a restaurant with the same name), its philosophical layers felt more in line for me with Sreenivasan’s iconic 1998 film Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala.
But of all the reasons it offers to make you want to revisit this film, it’s likely that you go back first, just to see how Biju Menon becomes Avaraachan. Despite the weightlessness and the film’s tendency to cut to comedy each time it proposes something deeply profound, you notice how he’s been able to create a full emotional arc for the character without having to shout it out. We see this is the tiny twinkle in his eyes when he stares at a photo of his grandson. We feel it even stronger in that scene in which he deals with rejection in the most heartbreaking manner. When you’ve got an actor like him course correcting the ebbs of flows of this screenplay, there’s not much left for us to do expect wait for the right amount of time, just so we can watch Avaraachan & Sons all over again.
Avaraachan & Sons is now streaming on Netflix.