Sajeev Pazhoor, the first-time director of Enna Vilai, is no ordinary writer. He’s written the new-age Malayalam classic Thondimuthalum Drikshakshiyum and the directors who have worked on Sajeev’s scripts include Dileesh Pothan, G Prajith (the director of Oru Vadakkan Selfie) and the master Shaji N Karun. Sajeev has also made dozens of documentaries and short films before turning director with Enna Vilai, a Tamil drama set in Rameshwaram. What shines through, even at a premise level, is this writer’s mind and a short story-like quality that could have been made into a better film.
This quality is evident even with the opening montage that sets the tone for Thavasi’s (Karunas) story. As we see Thavasi stand near the beach, his younger sister walks past him and into the bushes on the shore. We feel it’s a casual meeting meant to establish the everyday mirth of this family, but in hindsight you realise that she must hide behind these bushes to answer nature’s call.
They’re a family of fishermen who live in Rameshwaram and they do their best to ensure their kids end up with better lives than theirs. But there are multiple reasons why the film is set in Rameshwaram. Not only is Thavasi a fisherman, but he supplements his income by diving into the sea to collect coins left behind by pilgrims visiting the temple town. These portions brim with life and it’s made up of little snippets that make you experience the everyday routines of people like Thavasi.
So, what happens when Thavasi dives deep one day to discover a golden medallion at the bottom of the seabed? The Rameshwaram setting adds several possibilities to what could happen. Is there a religious angle to this medallion? Who does this belong to? Could this ‘treasure’ be a gift from above to end all of Thavasi’s financial issues or is there an ethical soft spot in claiming this medallion to be one’s own?
Such questions keep popping up in our heads as we see Thavasi gradually become a lot more important to the system than he was as a regular fisherman. The film also puts worth high-voltage questions about morality, corruption, and India’s age-old legal system “left behind by the Britishers.” It also transforms from a personal story about one man and his luck into a bloated courtroom drama.
This is also where you begin to see the limitations of Sajeev as a filmmaker. As the film starts to focus solely on courtroom proceedings, the staging begins to look awkward and the dialogue too sounds it's been reused from older films. The difference Thavasi and his rustic setting made to the plot becomes secondary and the film reduces itself to just one legal debate—is Thavasi a thief for claiming the medallion and is the medallion a property of the State?
As the film goes deeper into this debate, the legalese becomes so repetitive and uninspired that you feel like someone’s reading out the case notes, as typed out by the court stenographer. Apart from the lead actors—Nimisha Sajayan plays the role of a lawyer—you feel the crudeness even in the performances. Actors like Mohan Raman and Kavithalaya Krishnan abandon all semblance of subtlety to play uni-dimensional villains. Into its third act, we see the film trying to paper over its shortcomings with deus ex machina situations and a convenient resolution we’ve seen in far too many films. The specificity and the life from the first act go missing and high-pitched melodrama becomes the order of the day. As an unfussy short story, Enna Vilai may have lots to offer, but seen purely as a courtroom drama, there’s no case to be made.