'Vaazha 2' Movie Review: Adulting And All Its Moods In This Beautiful Bromance

There aren't many filmmakers out there with as honest an understanding of the growing-up years as Vipin Das does. We see him begin most of his scripts by introducing us to his lead characters as children, often taking us into an aspect of their childhood that might not feel like much. This could be something as innocent as us joining Jaya on her walk to school through cashew plantations in Jaya Jaya Jaya Hain (2022). Vaazha: The Biopic Of A Billion Boys too begins in school with the formation of what appears to be an unlikely friendship. Its leads may come from different places and backgrounds, but these boys have a way of finding their gang during the strangest of events.

In its sequel, Vaazha II: Biopic of a Billion Bros, we meet Hashir (Hashir) and Alan (Alan) during a particularly painful event. Hashir’s father has just passed away and he’s still too young to fully grasp the seriousness of what’s happening. As he walks around the house discussing his pregnant mother and the baby brother he hopes to get, it’s not easy to imagine that we’re witnessing young Hashir assuming all the responsibilities of his house. Not only does this event make him THE older sibling, but it also makes him the “man of the house,” even before he turns 10.

Packed with humour, the gaze isn’t that of an adult looking down at adolescence. We’re in Hashir and Alan’s shoes right from the start and that’s the reason why it feels so heartbreaking when Hashir returns home to notice all his precious goldfish floating upside down. Not only does this moment stay with usin our understanding of Hashir, but it also plants a seed that gradually grows into a tree in a film that is as much about loss as it is about losers.

Vaazha II surrounds itself with so much of the ordinary that the images we see on screen begin like they are ours. This could be traumatic memories of an angry parent, cutting open a football to stop kids from playing or the embarrassing aftermath of getting caught while bunking school. In a minor aside, the film takes all of a minute to explain just how debilitating it can be for children when they’re denied access to a playground. What makes the film extraordinary isn’t its motivational messaging or the way it expects boys to come of age with the switch of a button. What makes it so moving is that it lets boys be boys, allowing them the space to make their mistakes and to tell just tell them that we’re all in this together.

The film shifts elegantly from a lighthearted comedy about drug abuse to a more mature drama about migration. Even in places where it could easily have sounded like a PSA, the film allows its older characters to remind us that they too were once just as screwed up as the boys they are advising. Of course, it’s careful enough not to make drug use sound like a joke but it’s just as careful to ensure the message reaches the ears it is meant to. So, when Hashir is forced to assume the duty of a big brother yet again, we do not see the manchild accepting fate. The acceptance on his face signifies just how far he has come from the boy he was just years ago.

It is also a sequel that takes several leaps forward when it comes to the message of the first film. As moving as it was, Vaazha 1 talked about forceful parenting and the flaws of our education system—topics that have been addressed before. But in the sequel, it paints a realistic picture of the Malayali youth and their unrealistic expectations of migrating abroad. In a scene that’s as funny as it is eye-opening, we see images of a tuition centre in Kerala getting intercut with images of a strikingly similar college in London. When we see two of our boys struggling to catch hold of a single paracetamol tablet in the UK, the Malayali dream of moving abroad gets a much-needed reality check.

All of this makes Vaazha II as profoundly moving as it is funny. In a throwaway line, we see Alan ask his buddy Hashir to keep visiting his parents, even when Alan can no longer be around. But the payoff for this setup happens so strikingly that we cannot help but tear up. Of course, the writers may have thought about making a secular point in here somewhere, but when this moment hits you, it feels so sincere that you know that you are watching one of Kerala’s many million stories.

Not one performance feels out of place and not one scene feels like it overstays. The cast, which includes a huge group of people who have graduated from Reels, transcends its small screen superstardom to plant its place in Malayalam cinema. And by the time the film carefully chooses to sneak in the ‘Makane’ score from the first film, we’ve all melted into a puddle, counting ourselves in among the billion bros this film becomes a biopic of.