There's something odd about this emotional drama by debutante Johnpaul George, mostly because of the way it is made. Nevertheless, it's still a piece of unimaginative drivel.
Guppy (Master Chethan) is a young streetwise boy who lives with, and single-handedly takes care of, his handicapped mother. His primary job, which helps him bring food to the table, is maintaining the breeding of, and selling, guppies, a type of tiny clean-water fish which is often harvested to keep mosquitoes at bay. When Guppy is not working, he is running some errands for the local people, who return their thanks financially. His dream is to gift his ailing mother a fully-automatic wheelchair, but before he can do that, his uncontrolled pompousness drives him to get into a squabble with Thejus Varkey (Tovino Thomas), a haughty young engineer who has come to the village to build a long- due bridge on the orders of the central government. What follows is a face-off between Guppy and Thejus, who both seem to have personality issues.
I say personality issues because why the characters behave in certain ways at the start of the face-off does not make any sense. Guppy, who is shown as a care-taking, responsible son, behaves like he was hit by a lightning. His air against and around this newcomer, Thejus, is neither convincing nor fathomable. Thejus, on the other hand, reciprocates in equally awful ways despite his seemingly tragic past, which is explored later in the film. Then, somewhere around the 90th minute, a turning point reverses the table and throws the characters into thin air. By the time they hit the ground, Guppy has grown a feverish dash of fear and Thejus has become the most forgiving person in the world. This mercuric stances portrayed by the characters without a detailed explanation is why the film fails for me.
The oddness in the screenplay and the camera work prevents one from yawning to death, and helps in finishing the 150-minute long narrative. The brilliant performances by each and every cast member supported by some occasional humor is what makes the viewing at least a bit light and easy. But, then again, the dawn of drippy sequences as things fall into place wrongfully begins to demand the viewer to shed some tears and grip that mental psyche, for the bittersweet climax is reported like a legend. The convenient disclosure, and thus, addition of a third genre (thriller), towards the end is just an icing on top of the stale flour-infested cake.
Chethan and Thomas rock their portrayals, but even that does not help the story from shifting gears and using smoke and mirrors to dupe its informed viewer. Of course, there is sentimentality involved in the script, but one can hardly connect with the two central characters who, based on their "dispositions", should have shown empathy and sympathy to each other, for their own lives have been a battle and a nasty one at that.
This film may convince some because of its cue-ball narrative and an undertone about a young boy who has peaky mountains as responsibilities. But, there's no compromise with poorly written characters, as George tries to get away with.
BOTTOM LINE: Johnpaul George's "Guppy" could have been a lot better had it supplemented the story with natural realism and basic imagination. Wait for TV premiere.
Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES
