From the blood and tears that flowed in the first half, the narrative takes a ‘U’ turn and becomes a comic caper post interval, giving us a feeling that we watched two different films that were merged together midway, feels Paresh C Palicha.
Prithviraj has always claimed that he takes responsibility of his productions, and makes sure that they are good films. And he does not mind losing money if the experiment fails.
So, you go to the theatre to watch Darwinte Parinamam, his latest venture as a producer, expecting it to be quite experimental.
And rightly so. The title role does not belong to the star actor; it belongs to the anti-hero Chemban Vinod Jose (who is actually the hero as director Ranjith explains in the beginning).
So, this is the story of Gorilla Darwin (Chemban Vinod Jose), a dreaded gangster of Kochi; a widower and a single father smitten by a local teacher. He asks a wannabe filmmaker if he can make the love story successful, and he gets the reply that if it was a situation in a film, he could have fixed it with a song and all!
Well, we do get a song. But this love story is just a minor distraction in the plot.
The real story is about Anil Anto (Prithviraj), who comes to Kochi from Kottarakkara with his pregnant wife Amala, (Chandini Sreedharan) after having a fight with his mother, who was ill- treating his wife under the influence of television serials.
We eagerly wait for the paths of the hero and villain to cross and they do, thanks to a chain snatching incident that ultimately leads to Amala’s miscarriage.
The culprit is Darwin’s younger brother.
Now you expect a bloody fight to the finish or at least Anil getting even with Darwin in an intelligent manner. But it turns out to be utterly farcical, from the blood and tears that flowed in the first half, the narrative takes a ‘U’ turn and becomes a comic caper post interval, giving us a feeling that we watched two different films that were merged together midway.
Prithviraj is so confident that his eyes well up with tears but they do not flow freely, as if he is waiting for someone's permission to do so.
Soubin Shahir, who is the flavour of the season, tries very hard to induce humour in the proceedings as Darwin’s younger brother, but hams all the way.
Chemban’s effort to make the most out of the opportunity to play the title role is just average.
Finally, Darwinte Parinamam turns out to be a disappointment making us wish that Prithviraj will be more judicious in selecting the scripts to produce in the future.
Rediff Rating:Â 