'Ashakal Aayiram' Movie Review: The Jayaram We Missed In This Wholesome Anthikadian Comedy

‘History repeats itself’ is the phrase that kept coming to mind while watching Jayaram’s delightfully old-school Ashakal Aayiram, co-starring his son Kalidas. Yet, when you think of a film reuniting this real-life father-son duo, you might first be tempted to recall Kochu Kochu Santhoshangal, the charming Sathyan Anthikad comedy that brought them together the first time. But if you observe closely, the soul of Ashakal Aayiram is closer in spirit to another Anthikad classic, the 1999 family drama Veendum Chila Veettukaryangal. 

It’s a realisation that hits you like a ton of bricks, given the 27-year gap between the two films. In this period, it’s Jayaram’s Hariharan who needs to support his spoilt son Ajeesh (Kalidas) as he goes around town auditioning to become the next superstar (he calls himself Young Prince). In one of these audition calls, Ajeesh performs the climactic sequence from Vikram’s Anniyan, but the imagery that comes to mind is that of Roy from Veendum…performing melodramatically to impress director Lohithadas. From playing the spoilt son himself to switching over to the role of the father, it wouldn’t be too unfair to call Ashakal Aayiram an enjoyable update of the 1999 film (the film itself is happy to make this admission). 

But it still feels too soon to make Jayaram, the actor, restrict himself to the role of the father, just for this film to be about the son’s character. The wildest jokes in Aashakal Ayiram are either a result of Hariharan’s own doing or those at his expense. In one of the film’s funniest scenes, we see Hariharan disappear into Jayaram as he re-enacts the now iconic scene from Salaam Kashmir. It’s a sinister bit of self-referentiality in a film that’s already brimming with unlimited meta cinema potential. Imagine how clever it sounds when the film takes this meta comedy a step further to get a character to call Hariharan, “Malayalam cinema’s next Thilakan.” 

The meta jokes keep coming along, somewhere getting you to realise that what you’re watching is as good as a Greatest Hits Redux of memories that have come to make Jayaram feel special to us. In an obvious sense, this includes the way the superhit song from Sharjah To Sharjah is thrown at you, even when it doesn’t fully feel like it fits organically. But several touches let moments sneak up on you when you least expect them. This includes a crackling drinking scene between father and son, written around the likeable flaws that make both of them utterly human. What else is this but a tribute to the exact shade of grey that made most of Jayaram’s characters so dear to us? It’s a potent mixture of characteristics, which include jealousy, insecurity, and pomposity, but never strong enough to make you feel like he’s a bad person.

The update to the classic Jayaram character also does away with what made some of them problematic. From the women in his films being portrayed as punching bags, only to facilitate a transformation here through Asha Sharath’s character, we get one of the most thoughtfully written characters in his filmography. More than screentime, there’s a soft dignity to her, an inner strength that tells us everything we need to know without a scene that needs to shout. She becomes the film’s conscience keeper, the moral compass through which we see where Hariharan and Ajeesh stand.

This easy chemistry is then heightened when they’re pitted against Sharaf-U-Dheen’s superstar, a decidedly over-the-top bad guy in sharp contrast with the overt decency on the other side. But even his character isn’t used merely to supply comedy. A film that’s already deep into meta territory only deepens when he plays a powerful Nepo baby, meddling with the rest. So, when the film suddenly uses the same settings of a movie-within-a-movie to give you the most dramatic moments, you do not see it coming. It surprises you in ways that really touch you, appealing to a dormant side that missed the warmth of these actors and the movies they represented.

And when Ashakal Aayiram uses a callback to bring you Ilaiyaraaja's background score from Kochu Kochu Sandoshangal at a particularly sneaky moment, the dormant fanboy might find it hard to hold it in. It may be another film that ends with another lesson on the importance of family and the need to stick together. But when it’s made with so much innocence, love, and a cast that still owns a direct dial-up connection to that old neural network of yours, you can’t help but walk away with a feeling of having been hugged by people you used to know.