Let’s face it, andhadhun is not an acting practice. It was more about the plot, and the actors were there to serve it rather than focusing on the performance. But what supports this film is that all actors manage to hold back their performances, even when they have to go crazy. Acting and storytelling work perfectly in sync.
There is no attempt by one to overshadow the other.
Everything works like great classical music beats – in this case, the piano. I remember it was very relaxing seeing Andhadhun on the big screen for the first time. Because it was arranged and edited in such a way that you put yourself entirely into the storytelling.
Brahmam, on the other hand, has areas that test patience. Even a universal composer like Jakes Bejoy can create so much in a film. That it’s hard to know where to put the music. It’s like participating in a musical chair that everyone always sits on.
In Andhadhun, the characters act as if every event in the film is happening for the first time. The characters in Bhramam seem to have rehearsed their reactions to situations they had foreseen.
Simi in Andhadhun (played by the incomparable and irreplaceable taboo) seems more complicated than he allows. At one point, Ray Matthews (Prithviraj) calls Simi a “TikTok heroine”. Well, he’s right. But the funny thing is he also acts like a TikTok star. This Simi feels like a version of TikTok in comparison.
Even so, Bhramam manages to be a decent enough remake simply because the actors, including Mamta, do well in some places. The culprit came straight out of film noir. I also feel like they’ve done something interesting with Ray, the blind pianist (or not?) showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Prithviraj is effectively vacillating between innocence and mischief, especially in the first half.
Ray is a strange man who travels like a saint.
For example, he would not commit an extramarital affair to achieve his goals, but he has proven himself to be someone whose morals falter due to certain habits. Ray reminds me of the guy who secretly admires sensual shoots on Instagram but talks about making women objects in songs with an article on Twitter.
Sometimes Prithviraj reminds me of Mohanlal and Mukesh from the comedies of the 80s and 90s, where the main characters use their charms to seduce women. I also like what you’re doing here with an unreliable narrator. In contrast to the original, the details of the third act make us doubt the veracity of the flashback that Ray tells “two years later” at the climax. If I remember correctly, this plot development in Andhadhun was approached as if it were the truth.
Uni Mukundan like Dinesh – dubious cops with “fat but no brains” – are pretty happy in some places. I like that he doesn’t try to imitate Manav’s inspector, Vij Manohar, in Andhadhun. Humour sometimes comes from the idea that Dinesh is not as successful as Manohar when hiding his nervousness.
Sometimes this happens through meta-situation, like when Dinesh tries to eat a dozen eggs while avoiding his wife’s questions (Ananya, funny too). Anyone who knows Unnis’ fitness habits and personality from real life will laugh at these moments.
At first, I wanted to speak to Bhramam as if seeing him for the first time:
After seeing Andhadhun twice, the image is still fresh in my head. But it’s hard when you’ve seen the original. So if the remake is frame-by-frame mainly, it just becomes a “notice the difference” game. Maybe it will work for those who are not familiar with andhadhun.
Producers claim that Bhramam is more ridiculous. I have to disagree. Yes, it made me laugh at some points, but the energy that the movie has at the start dissipates as Jagadish walks in the picture, and it’s not his fault. He is nice. I’m excited to see this vintage Jagadish again. But it seems to me that after a while, the film loses interest in its characters.
It’s like waiting a long time for the hammer to land and then telling him the hammer has come, done its job, and gone. Andhadhun benefits from relatively shorter execution times and tighter processing. Brahmam made me look at the clock.
Michael Kane once said that only a failed film should be reworked if you can find a safe way to fix the original. As the person involved in the obscure remake of one of his brilliant cars with early roles, he had to know.