Bhramam is the official Malayalam remake of the Bollywood film Andhadhun, a crime thriller directed by Ravi K Chandran and written by (dialogues) Sarath Balan. The film stars Prithviraj Sukumaran, Mamta Mohandas, Unni Mukundan, and Rashi Khanna in lead roles.
The film revolves around Ray Mathews (Prithviraj Sukumaran), a blind musician who is a pianist and performs small scale shows in Kochi. After being noticed by a vintage film actor Uday Kumar (Shankar), he is invited to play at a private concert at his residence to surprise his wife Simi (Mamta Mohandas) on their wedding anniversary. But things take an unexpected turn, and Ray realizes that he is in a booby trap, stuck as a prime witness of a crime. What happens next and how it changes his life forms the plot of the story.
Bhramam is a decent remake of the Bollywood thriller film Andhadhun, starring Ayushman Khurrana. Though the film lacks the impact of the original, it has managed quite well to keep up with the screenplay of Andhadhun. Where the film falls short is in the dialogues, but compensating for this, the film has well written comic scenes, prevailing over the original.
The film stars Prithviraj Sukumaran as Ray Mathews in the lead role. Prithviraj as a pretentious blind musician was convincing for his imperfect act as a blind person, rather than keeping it too believable, which is perfect for the character. Not most normal people would be able to pretend to be blind as perfect as a natural blind person, and Prithviraj has taken care of such subtle nuances, giving a very decent performance. Mamta Mohandas as Simi was pretty good. She has enacted the character the best way possible, but the effect Tabu had left is still unbeatable. Unni Mukundan was also really good as Dhinesh and did justice to the characterization. Rashi Khanna as Anna was also convincing.
Film’s cinematography is handled by the director himself, Ravi K Chandran, who has done a beautiful job. The visuals of the film stand equally best to the original version of the film. Ravi K Chandran has truly captured the visual essence of the original film and brought it to Bhramam.
The music tracks of the film is also good to hear. The background score and tracks will be one of the major “on loop” songs of the year. Jakes Bejoy has yet again given us a wonderful album to listen to in Malayalam.
The film is based on Sriram Raghavan’s Andhadhun, and the dialogues of Malayalam have been written by Sarath Balan. The dialogues were extremely dramatic at times and didn’t come out well. The grey theme of the film, which has a bit of humour at times, requires clever dialogue writing to keep both emotions balanced, but Bhramam missed the magic there.
Ravi K Chandran’s directorial is a faithful remake to the original version, though not the best version. The film needs to brush up a lot in characterization, dialogues and dialogue delivery, and performances. Though it has its shortcomings, the film will never fail in holding your attention and is engaging throughout.