Varane Avashyamund

Varane Avashyamund (2020) takes place in one apartment building in Chennai and puts four separate kinds of loneliness in it. Neena is divorced, trying to make a living tutoring French and teaching classical dance, and has a daughter. Nikitha keeps pressing her mother to remarry. Across the landing lives Unnikrishnan, a retired major: rigid, rule bound and alone. There is also Bibin, staying in Neena's brother's flat. The title means a groom is wanted and is written in the language of a marriage advertisement. That is deliberate. The film takes the Indian marriage comedy template and puts something nobody expects inside it. The real subject is not marriage but whether starting again late in life is possible. Shobana returned with this film after a long absence and the return was an event in Kerala. Suresh Gopi is best known for action films, and the quiet major is unusual in his career. It is Anoop Sathyan's first film. His father is the director Sathyan Anthikad, who is known for exactly this kind of everyday comedy. It runs 145 minutes. Good for: Malayalam cinema, family comedy, and warm drama. Less good for: the pace is slow, the plot is thin, and following four threads at once is tiring in the first half hour.