Vaazha

Four friends were never good at school. They did not pass their examinations, nobody expects anything of them, and their families constantly hold up the neighbour's child as an example. Entering adulthood the pressure grows: find work, get into college, become something. None of the four knows what to do. They make a plan and it does not hold. They make another and it does not hold either. The narrative starts in childhood and follows the same four across years, granting them no deliverance at any point. Anand Menen directs; Vipin Das wrote the screenplay. Siju Sunny, Joemon Jyothir, Amith Mohan Rajeswari and Jagadish are in the cast. The language is Malayalam. It opened on 15 August 2024 and runs a hundred and twenty five minutes. It took more than thirty eight crore at the box office, a large success for its low budget. A sequel was made after that success. The matter it treats is comparison; parents measuring their children against others is the engine of the narrative. The humour works through recognition; school, examinations and the order of the neighbourhood are its direct material. The narrative shows failure not as a defect but as a condition. Narration is used and one of the characters tells the story. Its limit is structure; the narrative proceeds in pieces and the last section is didactic. Who it is for: viewers who like Malayalam comedy and stories of the young. Who it is not for: it is episodic, the references local, and the ending lectures.