9 (2019)

Director: Jenuse Mohamed
Writer: Jenuse Mohamed
DOP: Abhinandan Ramanujam
Cast: Prithviraj, Wamiqa Gabbi, Master Alok
Language: Malayalam

A comet is going to pass very close to the Earth, an event which is going to affect life on Earth for 9 days. Electricity, combustion engine vehicles with spark plugs, battery run things etc will all be out for 9 days. Albert (Prithviraj) is an astrophysicist of great repute and is assigned a task by his mentor which involves going to Himalayas to document the event and how it affects the tribes over there, whom have predicted this happening much earlier than the scientific community. He also takes his motherless son, Adam, with whom he have a difficult relationship. There they meet an outsider, Eva (Wamiqa Gabbi), which sets in motion certain chain of events for the film to jump from one genre to the next.

Genre jumping within a film can be quite risky because you can lose your audience with each jump. Prithviraj in his promotion interviews had been stressing on sci-fi aspects of the film while director Jenuse was more or less pitching it as a fantasy film with some cosmic sci-fi background. They have been keen to manage audience expectations to make sure that the right ones turn up during the initial days of the release. Trailer was also pretty detailed and stunning. Prithviraj himself produced the film with Sony Pictures International also partnering, a first for Malayalam cinema, and they haven't made any compromises. Film is top notch on a technical level and you're doing well when the audience is immersed enough to not notice the VFX while watching the film.

The first half an hour of the film is its weakest with lengthy expositions some of which could have been trimmed or made in a little more cleverer manner. You cannot fault them too much for it because there is quite a lot of information that they have to pass to the audience. The one flashback song in it also looked totally unnecessary but the reaction of Albert to the pregnancy news is also kind of key. Film gets going once they reach the Himalayas as they get the pacing spot on from there. It is difficult to talk much about the film from then on because everything becomes spoiler territory. Steer clear of them and pay close attention while watching. The ending is deliberately ambiguous and you have a science Vs supernatural explanations competingat the end. Such ambiguous endings are not familiar for Malayalam cinema and a section of audience will certainly fail to appreciate it. There is an explicit explanation sequence at the end for such people but many will find problem with the similarity to another Prithviraj film from recent times. Many have missed the alternate possibility suggested by the final line of the film and the brief closing credits scene.

Performance wise, Prithviraj is his usual self and it is Wamiqa Gabbi who steals the show. The kid actor in it is also very good as is the creepy caretaker. I'll be certainly watching it once again and very glad that I picked the best screen possible during my first outing. This is a film that has to be seen at the cinemas and I really hope it does well. Ambiguous films are hard to pull off and they've managed it.

Rating: 4.25/5