Drishyam (2013) and Drishyam 2 (2022)

Last year, a colleague kept recommending ‘Drishyam 2’ to me and said the Malayalam original is even better. Still recovering from the barely-watched ‘Tanhaji’ in 2020, I didn’t want to watch the Ajay Devgn starrer anytime soon and forgot all about it.

This year, I got reminded of the movie and started watching it one night on Amazon Prime. The movie gripped me, and even as I was piecing the story together over multiple weekends, I kept wondering why Shriya Saran was cast as the wife and Ishita Dutta as the elder daughter – in real life, they have an 8-year age gap and they didn’t come across as mother-daughter at all.

That’s the only grouse I have against the movie. The rest of the movie is well-paced, well-written and I was happy to see the crucial role played by the manuscript of a book. The interplay of everyday settings, law, law enforcement and trauma portrayal delighted me, and I felt sad for both Ajay Devgn and Tabu’s characters. Tabu resigns from her powerful job in addition to dealing with personal loss.

PTSD and neurological impact of trauma is strongly associated with men from Defense Services, and I was happy to see how well it was woven into the story and portrayed by the civilian elder daughter. There is far more awareness required regarding PTSD in women, particularly related to voyeurism and self-defence.

I then decided to watch ‘Drishyam’ in Malayalam – I am familiar with both Mohanlal and Meena, and I read that Asha Sharath had done a good job. My first attempt flopped. I found a version on YouTube and the subtitles couldn’t be turned on. I watched for a bit, understood a bit, but knew that I couldn’t continue doing both. I then took a mobile subscription to Disney Hotstar.

I kept thinking how old Mohanlal is, but surprisingly he and Meena didn’t look mismatched and the child stars were excellent. I liked how casually sex talk was woven into the script – as one example, the lines around villagers being normal as they watched adult movies on cable TV made me smile. I didn’t smile at the sexist references related to kitchens, vessels and shopping.

One can be right and have no evidence to prove it - Asha Sharath’s character showcases this unhappy situation well. One can be ethical, make grave mistakes and have family support – the elder daughter showcases this well.  

The male protagonist played by Mohanlal / Ajay Devgn is hugely inspired by movies, and it is sad to see that ‘Drishyam’ has inspired more than one murder in the country. I am not sure what ‘Drishyam 3’ has in store, but I am more likely to watch it in Malayalam as I liked Meena way more than Shriya Saran.