Aana Alaralodalaral review: simple plot turns strewed mess

The attempts to recreate the magic of vintage Sathyan Anthikad - Sreenivasan movies haven’t really worked if you check what has happened with those films which got released in the recent past. Aana Alaralodalaral directed by Dileep Menon is one more such attempt to create a social satire. But with the script having no clarity on how to present the idea refreshingly and clearly this film fails to impress.

Childhood friends Hashim and Parvathy are our main protagonists. Parvathy had an elephant in her house at that time and one day Hashim was accused of stealing Shekharan Kutti’s (the elephant) “elassu”. The humiliation forces Hashim and family to move away from the village and the movie talks about the return of Hashim to settle the score.

The dialogues in the movie are hilarious and typical. That is the one thing that makes this movie engaging. Because of the lack of clarity on how to present the idea, the makers are somewhat wasting their time by adding comedy subplots. The social preach in the movie falls flat in the last quarter of the film and you can sense a kind of hurried conclusion towards the end of the film.

The lead roles are played by Vineeth Sreenivasan and Anu Sithara. But the funny thing is that they have very limited space in this parade of numerous characters. Vineeth Sreenivasan wasn’t that great when the character became serious. Anu Sithara is mainly screaming out the Elephant’s name. Suraj Venjaramoodu who goes back to his old style comedy is the one who has got the major share of screen time. Mamukkoya, Innocent, Vishak Nair, Thesni Khan, Hareesh, Biju Kuttan, Sreejith Ravi, Srikanth Murali, Vijayaraghavan, Dharmajan and several others are there in the huge star cast of this film.

Because it has so less to play with Sarath Balan is only building funny sequences to extent the run time. Dileep Menon captures the funny moments in the typical style and I would like to appreciate what they have managed to do with the elephant. On a writing level, they haven’t utilized the scope of having an elephant at the center of everything. The confused mixture of spoof, sarcasm and satire will make us scratch our head. The other technical aspects excluding the nice tunes from Shaan Rahman were on the average side.

Aana Alaralodalaral had the scope to be that harmless entertainer with a simple story and lot of jokes. But because of the lack of clarity on how to assemble the pieces to create a convincing final picture, this movie becomes a disappointing one.