Premam

George has three loves and the film tells them in three separate periods. At eighteen he loves Mary; school ends and he says nothing. At twenty two he falls for Malar, a teacher at his college; this time he speaks, and it ends another way. In his thirties life has gone somewhere else. Alphonse Puthren writes, directs and edits. Nivin Pauly plays George, Sai Pallavi plays Malar, Anupama Parameswaran plays Mary. Its effect in Kerala went well past box office. It ran in cinemas for months, its lines and its hair and beard became a generation's fashion, and its songs stayed in circulation for a long time. It is regarded as one of the most culturally pervasive Malayalam films of recent decades. Sai Pallavi entered cinema with it. She had no acting experience, and the decision not to use makeup or conceal the marks on her face was widely discussed; it was unusual in Indian cinema at the time. The form is notable too. Puthren cut the film himself and built the narrative in three visual registers, each period with its own colour, music and camera language. A high quality copy leaked online while it was still in cinemas, and it lost nothing at the box office regardless. Who it is for: viewers who like Malayalam cinema and romance carrying a generational story. Who it is not for: it runs long, the second section dominates the others, and some of the comedy stops the narrative.