Writers Manu and Sonny seem to have stumbled upon a terrific premise for one of Malayalam’s first time-loop comedies (Sajin Gopu himself has starred in Lijo Jose Pellissery’s darker Churuli) with Dhoomakethu (comet). Not only is the setting obviously Malayali, with much of the film taking place in a typical small-town home as it gets wedding-ready, but there’s also the theme of jealousy that feels peculiarly Malayali in this joyous setting.
This includes sneaky caterers wondering out loud about how a man as old and unappealing as Kuttan (Sajin Gopu) can score a wife like Sharmila (Nikhila Vimal). This includes nosy neighbours reminding each other of Sharmila’s ‘colourful past’ and of reasons why Kuttan has remained single for this long. Just as hilarious is one of Kuttan’s frenemies deciding to buy himself a new car exactly on the date of the wedding.
There aren’t characters who are particularly novel, but they do a great job of creating the nervous tension that feels obvious for such a wedding. What adds to this tension is how Kuttan feels stuck in the same loop, waking up on his wedding day after what appears to be a terrible nightmare. Just as Kuttan prepares himself to take his marriage to the next level sexually, an intervention interrupts both of them; rinse and repeat.
The timeline of the film is set across 16 such days and nights in which Kuttan tries to right his wrongs, just so he can get to his wife. With each new day, Kuttan inches closer towards the mysteries that need to be solved to escape this infinite loop. The scientific basis for this strange phenomenon is explained by introducing the idea of a comet that passes by every 3000 years or so. This cosmic basis adds a layer of inescapability to Kuttan’s plight, and we wait to see him figure out methods of his own to overcome it. As irony would have it, Kuttan will only achieve the goal of his ‘first night’ after surpassing the trauma of a thousand nights before it.
The film is repetitive by design and is meant to make you feel the claustrophobia of having no control over your day. Despite the monotony of the setting and the visuals that get thrown at you, what makes the film tick are the obvious questions that go unanswered, time and time again. This could be something as incomprehensible as the same friend of Kuttan’s (voiced by Suresh Krishna) phoning him with the same request day in and day out. This is the also the sneaky way we’re led to believe in Kuttan’s dark past and the reasons for his late marriage. But the driving force remains the mysterious Sharmila and her nymph-like behaviour that make us wonder if she’s even real.
For the film to escape its own monotony, these questions needed to have resulted in a set of ridiculously shocking answers. For instance, the vivid imagery of a set of masked men out to attack Kuttan, gets built up in our heads into something right out of a film like Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. But when their identities are finally revealed, they remain as faceless and pointless as they did with their masks on.
This is among the many tragedies of the third act in Dhoomakethu which go against its own novelty. All the mysteries get resolved with mundane resolutions we’ve seen in a hundred films before this and the repetitive structure of the film begins to gnaw at you. The big Checkov’s Gun in the end feels just as familiar and the fatigue of the time loop begins to make you feel like you’re stuck in time. Sajin Gopu and Nikhila Vimal add to this fatigue with performances that have become stock characters in their respective filmographies and even the characters who were funny at first, begin to feel stale. As Kuttan escapes the loop he’s stuck in, we take part in his jubilation, all set to escape memories of another forgettable movie.