Had Anna (Kalyani Priyadarshan) and Eesho (Prithviraj Sukumaran) met for the first time on a Christian Matrimony website, one of those popular community platforms that ensure bloodline purity, the couple and their families would have gravitated to one another. They belong to the same economic class, caste and Church diocese, have fair complexion and physical features that are high on demand in the Kerala wedding market. They live in houses that look like high-end boutique hotels. The parents possess a chic sense of dressing, but they hold traditional views on gender and family. The mothers, for instance, are always found in the kitchen. It is a perfect match.
Several times during Bro Daddy, also directed by Prithviraj, one might wonder, “Why don’t the two just tie the knot and end the ado?!”
Bro Daddy is centred on a non-issue. A blunt comedy where the most laughable joke is the actors’ desperation to entertain the viewer. This syndrome is the most striking in Mohanlal, the film’s producer, who plays Eesho’s father John Kattaadi. Fresh off the debacle of his big-budget Marakkar, the superstar makes painful efforts to reclaim the love of his audience. He bounces on his heels, adding a few more degrees to that famous tilt of his shoulder, in slow-motion shots, the film’s plea to the audience to pay attention and see the resemblances with the vintage Mohanlal that Kerala once fell in love with. He flirts with his wife Anna (Meena). He is a friendly father who shares even the most embarrassing secrets with Eesho. But there ends his character’s frills and material. John is a thoroughly empty character sleepwalking through an empty movie.
Prithviraj, meanwhile, cannot convince even the most committed viewer that he is a metrosexual young man who faints at the sight of blood. He tries to appear goofy, with meagre results. His tiffs with the father of his girlfriend Kurien (Lalu Alex) might have looked amusing in a different movie with a better writer and director. But in Bro Daddy, the bitter encounters of Kurien and Eesho look like products of unimaginative, sterile writing. There is no reasoning or grace to the staging of the scenes.
Prithviraj, the director, decided to make a film out of this screenplay probably because he saw the crackling potential of the situation where a father and a son have to reveal to each other that their respective partners are pregnant with their child. A marriage of Badhai Ho and Mohanlal’s evergreen Pavithram, films which were rich in emotions. The scene is rightly awkward and moderately funny, but the effect does not last. Once the scene is over, the film starts to meander, unable to find more moments of equal strength. By shooting the film like an extended television commercial for a variety of luxury products, Prithviraj turns the audience off comedy. The running jokes he presents are Anna’s inability to brew a good cup of coffee and Kurien’s constipation, shining signs of the acute unimaginativeness Bro Daddy is built on.
The only actor who delivers an effective and level-headed performance in this madness is Lalu Alex who, at times, looks genuinely shocked at his co-stars’ awkward performances. In the final moments, the senior actor singlehandedly shoulders the film.
Recommended
What makes a love story gripping, let’s admit it, is a good villain. Indian cinema is past the Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge phase where the lovers had to fight a stubborn father-in-law or a jealous third party. Caste and communal forces continue to be great antagonists (Sairaat, Eeda). So do the fragile egos of the modern youth (OK Kanmani). Bro Daddy is a rare comedy where the only villain in the narrative is the protagonists’ foolishness. Together, all the lead characters decide to keep Anna’s pregnancy a secret from her father. Irrational, because Kurien is anything but a perennially angry Amrish Puri who could bring the house down and burn the foetus. In the initial scenes, he is the butt of jokes. Eventually, the silly wedding gang untangles the knot by throwing a lot of money into the ring. Bro Daddy unabashedly promotes the idea that in India’s upper-caste and wealthy social cocoons, money is the balm that can cure any pain, including a father’s emotional turmoil.
Teeming with characters who are incapable of an interesting thought or a conversation, Bro Daddy merely seeks to supply content to India’s OTT pool. It cannot match up to small films like Jaan E Man that boast superior plotlines and execution, those that dig out far better comedy from India’s social realities or intimate circles. Prithviraj Sukumaran’s second directorial tastes bland, like currency notes.
*****
This Bro Daddy review is a Silverscreen original article. It was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the movie. Silverscreen.in and its writers do not have any commercial relationship with movies that are reviewed on the site.