Finally! After almost two years of waiting, we were blessed with Minnal Murali this Christmas. With goofy and mostly sane superheroes Christmas turned out to be better than anticipated. Of course, the Sunday after was horrible seeing the increase in the number of cases. Seriously it is baffling that with such good movies streaming on the OTTs for Christmas weekend, people still felt the need to step outside. Okay. I am digressing. I have become the neighborhood agony Arya Iyer ( Decoupled, also on Netflix). So coming back to our quaint little town of Kurukkanmoola. Jaison is our resident tailor with big dreams of settling in the US. He is already well versed with high-street American fashion like Abibas, Poma, Lowcost. Quite the fashionista. He is in love with Bincy and has already planned to marry her and move to the states. Meanwhile, Shibu is the town pariah. Considered a lunatic and antisocial, he does odd jobs at the tea stall. But he too nurses a soft spot for Usha, making for an endearing romantic sequence. On the eve of Christmas, Jaison and Shibu both are struck by lightning. A phenomenon which was explained by boring scientists on Doordarshan to no one's interest. In spite of the powerful lightning, Jaison and Shibu escape unscathed. But soon, their powers turn superhuman. And with those powers comes the burdening question of using them for the right or the wrong. Jaison's adorable nephew, luckily for Jaison pays attention in science class and comes up with a plausible explanation for Jaison's sudden gain in superhuman strength, speed, tolerance, heightened senses. What ensues is the fight between right and wrong. The realization that even though, they have superhuman strengths, do they still have humanity left in them? Minnal Murali took a long time to see the light of the day. Being struck by violent vandalism, deadly viruses, pandemic, this movie was worth all the wait. The simplicity of a small town in Kerala, the bonds between families, the silliness of jilted lovers. Basil Joseph does an amazing job of capturing a myriad of emotions and the cast does an even better job of delivering solid performances. Made in 1/10th of most superhero movies, this may not have amazing animation effects or costumes or Alex Sylvesteri's hair raising music (Although Sushin Shyam and Shan Rahman make the movie even more magical with their music), but Minnal Murali shows an incredible origin story about a superhero and an even more convincing one about the supervillain. If there is a second part, I hope we don't have to go through another world defining pandemic before we see it. By SB
