Netflix Saturdays : Kappella (Movie Review)

Kappella is a Malayalam movie, directed by debutant Mohammed Mustafa ( incidentally a national award winning actor) set in the pristine valleys of Wayanad. A very well crafted coming-of-age drama that completely pivots in the second half of the movie, to become a tense thriller. 

Jessy (Anna Ben) is simple girl with simple dreams who lives in their hillside village with her sisters and her seamstress mother and a daily-wage father, the quaint high range village nestled in the beautifully verdant valleys of Wayanad. She longs to see the beach one day and hopes that a movie-theatre and shopping mall would come up, making their village into a town. For a 12th-class fail, a monthly visit to the main centre of her village where she can buy new dresses or sarees defines the extent of her ambitions. 

Until the day. she dials a wrong number to this auto rickshaw driver named Vishnu (Roshan Mathews) in the big city of Kozhikode. That leads to many more stolen conversations, with a persistent Vishnu who doesn't miss a chance to speak to her. Vishnu is a do-gooder with a kind heart, who gives free rides to school kids, helps out strangers by taking them to the hospital and even helps out his co-auto drivers at the stand get passengers when they are in dire-need. Anna gradually warms up to him and her dreams start to take on colour now. She now wants a better phone,  touch-ones that can take 'selfies'.  But her life is still controlled by her conservative father who is a control freak. He is the kind who silences kids who laugh too loud or takes the cane to Jessy's younger sister when he sees the young girl take a lift on the cycle, from another older school boy. Jessy, now having fallen hard for Vishnu, finds her village life, a little too closeted and longs to break free. Especially when Sunny ( Sudhi Koppa) who runs the only textiles garment store in the village, takes a fancy to her and comes home, to ask her hand from her parents. Anna panics and decides to meet up with Vishnu to discuss how to get out of this predicament and plan their life ahead. But once she reaches the big city - confusion ensues with Vishnu losing his phone at the bus-stand. Another youngster named Roy (Sreenath Bhasi) enters the scene, having gotten hold of the phone. Things take on a sinister turn after Roy enters their lives and the narrative switches mode to become a nail-biting suspense thriller when things get ugly in the big city for the young village girl. 

The premise built around the wrong number is one of the favourite Malayalam movie themes. Hello, my dear wrong number ( Mohan Lal), Ramji Rao Speaking are some of the best movies built around this premise. Kappella holds its own and unspools like a very well made movie, despite this being Mohammed Musafa's debut directorial. Jimishi Khalid's cinematography captures the beautiful greens of the hilly Wayanad and the narrow bustling streets of Kozhikode pretty well - adding a lot of atmosphere to the story. You know from the first frame, where the rain drops are falling ever so slowly to build up into a torrential monsoon on a dark dawn, that Mustafa has something special building up. Especially the first half of the movie is shaped up to be the perfect meet-cute story of young girl and boy falling in love, over the phone. Despite not having ever met each other, their simple but earnest love story is grounded and believable. The story builds up nicely, initially setting up the viewers to get behind Jessy's character. Her life in the village focused on the simple pleasures of shopping trips or visits to the cliffside chapel for prayers and solace. We cut to the city frequently, to establish Vishnu's character as well - a kind hearted young man who rides the auto day and night, to make enough money for his two sisters. This isn't jarring and handled pretty deftly. 

But the laid-back tone of the movie suddenly switches gear to become a lot more brooding and tense by the second half. From the moment, Jenny gets down at the new bus-stand in Kozhikode city to meet up with Vishnu, whom she doesn't know by sight. And Vishnu unfortunately loses his mobile phone in an unintended mob scuffle. Enter the twist, the character of Roy. An interesting ploy that the director uses to heighten the tension, is he cuts us out just at this scene - leaving us biting our nails on, will the couple meet up now ? How will that turn out? 

We switch to Roy's background. Roy is a mystery as we meet him. A brooding youngster who gets his hands on the phone and is undecided on what to do with it. But the very next scene, tracing a few days back in Roy's life establishes his character pretty well. He is not afraid of violence, willingly wading into fights. We see him zipping through the city in his RX-100, drinking up with his buddies, avoiding going home for the nights. And we find out he is an unemployed youth, who is struggling to make ends meet. The only ray of light in his life, is his love - Annie who lends him money and is ready to pawn her jewels for the man. But the fateful day when Jenny lands up in Kozhikode bus-stand looking to meet up with Vishnu, Roy is frustrated and angry at having muffed up yet another interview ( mind you, not because of his lack of qualifications but for the inherently corrupt system that manages such jobs!) This sets up the viewers nicely for us to understand Roy's confused motivations. What happens next is an interesting rollercoaster as lines between good, bad and ugly blur out and our perceptions about who is morally upright and who is not, is completely flipped on its head. 

 As far as performances go, Mohammed Mustafa ensures his maiden directorial outing is in really good hands from an acting point of view. Anna Ben in only her third outing, is absolutely mesmerising, owning this charming character of a small-town girl with simple dreams and misplaced emotions. Roshan Mathews is now a national heartthrob after having landed a plum role in Choked, by Anurag Kashyap that released on Netflix last month. He is at ease, essaying his role as Vishnu the kind-hearted man in this big callous city, helping strangers out at random. But the standout of course is Sreenath Bhasi - in an explosive breakout role of his career. Blessed with oodles of talent, Sreenath Bhasi unfortunately hasn't had a full fledged author backed role, mainly sticking to a few minutes of glory, only to be sidelined by mainstream actors [Remember Trance?] He has matured with every role that he has taken on and as Roy - the angry, simmering misunderstood young man in Kappella - he blew my mind. There is a raw energy that he brings to the screen as Roy. Unpredictable, about to explode, so much frustration and anger brimming in those drawn out eyes of his as he lights up a cigarette. Brilliant! would love to see him do more such fuller and intense roles where he's on the screen, not just as a guess appearance. 

There are glitches of course. The premise about a village girl falling in love with her phone stalker in today's age and times seems slim. And then there's the implausibility of the reason why Vishnu falls in love with this random wrong number caller and what he plans out. All that is forgotten and forgiven because of the tense and thrilling second half of the movie, making me overlook all of these "implausibilities" and get on with the story. 

For a cloudy grey Saturday afternoon flick on Netflix, Kappella was top notch and perhaps underrated. It is not going to go down as a classic but the heartening visuals of the green rolling hills of Wayanad and Kozhikode combined with a strong story, great performances and a good music score elevates this movie from mediocre outings. Maybe the re-release on Netflix after COVID-19 shut down theatres, will be the silver lining for Kappella. Here's praying at the Kappella (which means Chapel) that it becomes a sleeper hit.