Review: Aval

Film: Aval

Director:Milind Rau

Cast: Siddharth, Andrea Jeremiah, Atul Kulkarni, Suresh, Anisha Angelina Victor and others

Music: Girish Gopalakrishnan

Cinematographer: Shreyaas  Krishna

Director Milind Rau’s Aval does what no Tamil film has done for a quite a while now. It genuinely leaves you rattled.

The film begins at the foothills of the Himalayas, where Dr Krishna (Siddharth) and his wife Lakshmi (Andrea) are leading a peaceful and happy life. Krishna is an accomplished brain surgeon whose services are valued immensely by his hospital and patients. At home, his wife Lakshmi, loves him with all her heart. The two are happy having the place all to themselves. There is just one unoccupied house opposite theirs.

Then, one day, a new family moves into the unoccupied house.

We soon learn that new occupants have bought the house. Businessman Paul (Atul Kulkarni), whose family comprises of his second wife, his two daughters Jenny (Anesha Angelina Victor) and Serah, his father, and a maid of Oriental origin, turn Dr Krishna’s new and only neighbours.

The two families invite and visit each other’s homes in the first week.

Right from the start, Jenny, the teenaged elder daughter of Paul (Atul Kulkarni), finds Krishna handsome and charming.

She begins to flirt with him, much to the amusement of Lakshmi, who is secure in the knowledge that Krishna loves her and that he will love no other.

Krishna too proves that he is worthy of the confidence that Lakshmi has placed in him. He handles the issue with maturity and care, and hopes Jenny’s infatuation will fade with time. But then, Jenny’s persistence only continues to increase. It increases to such an extent that this begins to annoy Lakshmi.

But then, that isn’t the problem. Or rather, that isn’t the only problem. Jenny begins to act in weird ways. She even attempts suicide twice. After psychological counselling, it becomes evident that Jenny sees and hears things that nobody else has seen in the house, at least until that point.

When asked what she hears, she says that she hears a woman warning her in Chinese. The warning, when translated, means ‘Get out of the house’…

The story is fascinatingly told and Milind Rau gets full marks as a story teller. He manages to keep the audience hooked on to plot of the film, which rapidly changes course, in a bid to evolve.

Siddharth, who has also penned the story along with Milind Rau, seems to have a clear understanding of the society’s mindset. He has cleverly used this understanding to infuse into the story a message that is bound to strike a chord with the audience in general and feminists in particular.

As an actor, Siddharth is a director’s dream. The man can turn into any character he chooses to play and can switch from one to the next in a jiffy.

He does a fabulous job of playing Krish aka Krishna. Equally impressive is Andrea as Lakshmi. The passionate bond that exists between a couple that is madly in love is brought out so convincingly by both actors that you actually believe they are a family, forgetting for two hours that these are just actors enacting scenes in a film.

Four other artistes other than these two deserve special mention. Suresh (who plays the psychiatrist) comes up with a strong performance as does Anisha Angelina Victor, who plays Jenny. Atul Kulkarni, who plays Paul, has always been a master of delivering controlled and measured performances and he does that one more time in this film too. A special word of appreciation for the maid of oriental origin and the child who plays Serah, the young second daughter of Paul. Both these artistes too have played their parts to perfection.

The film’s director seems to have recieved brilliant support in all three crucial tech departments.

Cinematographer Shreyaas Krishna, on the one hand, captures the beauty of the scenic locales of the areas surrounding the mighty Himalayas in the most truthful and striking manner possible. On the other, he accentuates that feeling of fear that the director is trying to create with his carefully planned lighting and shots.

Editor Lawrence Kishore’s editing is almost flawless. The only point where one feels a scene is dragging comes right at the end. But that too only for a period of say a couple of minutes. Otherwise, there is no point that the film loses your attention.

But it is the music that actually makes Aval what it is. Girish G, an immensely gifted music director, does a phenomenal job with the background score, sneaking fear into audiences’ hearts with his carefully chosen tunes. The mood of every scene is aptly reflected in the music that accompanies it. Girish’s wisdom lies in the fact that he uses silence, sparingly and as efficiently as he has used music to strike terror in the hearts of the audience.

On the whole, this is an entertaining fare that is bound to leave you scared, but thrilled.