Njan Marykutty Review: a story that needs to be told

In Bollywood, we have witnessed certain films like Padman and Toilet Ek Prem Katha which weren’t that great cinematically but served the purpose of being informative to a wider audience. Njan Marykutty, the new film from the combination of Jayasurya and director Ranjith Sankar is a film that has a story that needs to be told. With a star like Jayasurya willing to play a role like this, this film has a statement on the outside of the film itself in the debate about accepting transgender people.

Marykutty was born a man named Mathukutty. The sexual orientation gave him a lot of trouble and thus eventually Mathukutty decided to be a woman by undergoing sex change operation and became MaryKutty. Her ambition was to become a police officer and the movie talks about the difficulties through which Marykutti goes through in achieving that.

There are two occasions in the movie where we get to see the harsh reality of lack of proper basic recognition transgender get in this society. Marykutti becomes emotional when the collector was willing to apologize and also when she sees her name in a registered post. Njan Marykutti feels like a success when you witness these scenes and we have the main lead doing things like being an RJ and preparing for SI test, which isn’t the usual representation. The lecturing sort of writing is the problem with this movie. You need to feel reality in issue-based movies and this kind of high octane drama makes it a peripheral analysis of the trauma.

Jayasurya delivers a great controlled performance that doesn’t mock the sexuality of the character in any way. The body language and dialect are key elements in the performance and he has a great control over that. Joju George once again impresses us with his really organic rendering of Kunjipalu, an orthodox-minded policeman. Suraj Venjaramood becomes the district collector gracefully. Jewel Mary, Innocent, Aju Varghese etc are the other actors in the tale and they were all fine.

Ranjith Sankar as a writer has this ambitious take on subjects and unlike his last film Punyalan 2, this one has a sensible rooted ambition. As always he likes having elaborate dialogues and that at times becomes a burden as it demolishes subtlety. The making from Ranjith Sankar is still very dependent on the script to film pattern and you don’t see the craft often here. I was impressed by the certain practical detailing he gave to the film which gave it an edge over the usually melodramatic dark movies on transgender people. The cinematography was fine while the music wasn’t that great.

Njan Marykutty is a well-intended movie which needed a better nuanced and layered making. The agenda and the fabulous performance of Jayasurya are the major plus points of this Ranjith Sankar movie that ultimately ends on a positive vibe.