Official Trailer:

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

Dileesh Pothan’s movie starts with a note that Joji is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. While knowing the original story may make it interesting trying to map the characters, you don’t necessarily have to know the original play to appreciate Joji. P.K.Kuttappan, a rubber estate owner, is a strong person (physically too). As the head of the family, he controls and manages the family including the finance. He doesn’t trust his sons and he may have his reasons for not trusting them. Jomon, the elder one, is divorced, an alcoholic, and is adjusted to his father’s controlling ways. He seems to be the only one who likes his father. Middle one is Jaison, is not happy with his father but not strong enough to go against him. Last one Joji is the weakest of the brothers and most disliked by his father. Not only his father, even his brothers don’t take him seriously. Then we have the daughter-in-law, Bincy, Jaison’s wife, the weakest one in the family. Whenever we see Bincy, she is doing some household work, cooking, washing clothes, or cleaning the fish. In this setup, Kuttappan gets a stroke, paralyzed and is bedridden. He may not survive more than 2 weeks. There is a ray of hope in Joji, Jaison, and Bincy. But with a will to survive, Kuttappan gets better post the surgery. Even though he is bound to a wheelchair, he is healthy enough to sign cheques and control the finances. With no end in sight, Joji hatches a crime to kill his father and where it leads him to is the rest of the story.

Movie is deliberately slow paced and sometimes it feels nothing is happening on screen. As the movie progresses, things start falling in place as the details unravel. Few things are only hinted. Like Jaison trying to convince his father for money so that his family can move nearer to the clinic. Father refuses and he takes out his helplessness and anger on Bincy. You have to piece together maybe they are going for fertility treatment since they don’t have kids. What goes for the movie is strong writing by Syam Pushkaran, beautifully staged scenes, BGM with long silences by Justin Varghese that conveys the mood, and beautifully shot (cinematography by Shyju Khalid). While everyone delivers great performances, Fahadh Faasil steals the show as Joji. Of course, by this time we all know he is a great actor and a big thanks to him for choosing challenging roles 👍 Not sure whether he lost weight for this movie, but it helps to convey his physical weakness compared to his father and his brothers. Next character I liked is Bincy, based on Lady Macbeth with smart changes, who plays the silent co-conspirator to Joji in his first crime. They both get multiple interaction scenes but not much is spoken between them. Everything is conveyed with few glances between them, either in the kitchen, dining table, passing by each other, and once even via a mirror image.

Writing is detailed, and smart. Liked the way it followed Chekhov’s gun rule by the book, a gun shown in the first act need to be fired in a later act, you need to keep the promise. There is another scene where Bincy holds the bible and tells Joji no one has come back from the dead, which gives us the hint she has given up hope on god and they need to act to escape from the shackles. Then there is a homage to TGIK (The Great Indian Kitchen) scene where Nimisha scolds at her younger brother to get water on his own. Here Bincy takes on Joji in a similar way – of course this scene triggers Joji to execute his first crime. The way first crime is committed it aligns with Joji’s character, what a physically week person would choose. There are many like these and will require multiple viewings to unpack.

Only challenge I had was, considering the story, there is no character you can root for and had to watch the movie like an observer 😀