In 'Neru', Mohanlal Isn't Larger Than Life – And That's What Makes the Film Work

One of the strongpoints of Neru is that it doesn't sacrifice its key character in the service of superstardom.

(This piece has spoilers.)

One of the strongpoints of Mohanlal-starrer Neru is that it doesn't sacrifice its main theme or key character in the service of superstardom.  

Directed by Jeethu Joseph (who is known for the Drishyam movies), Neru is essentially a courtroom drama that deals with a sexual offence. What is striking about the movie is that despite being a 'superstar' film – in which Mohanlal has nailed the role of an anxious lawyer, not unlike how Amitabh Bachchan performed in Pink – the plot mostly revolves around another female character.  

Joseph and Shanthi Mayadevi, the film's writer, must be applauded for not making any unnecessary deviations in the story – and Mohanlal, too, for fully understanding that in this script, he isn't a larger-than-life figure. He plays advocate Vijayamohan, who is seen as a weak opponent facing a lethal legal brain, advocate Rajashekar (played by a brilliant Siddique). 

Malayalam Cinema & the 'Ordinary Man'

Neru is centred around a talented Anaswara Rajan, who plays a blind woman whose life hangs in the balance after she is subjected to sexual assault. What keeps the case in knots is an intricate detail of the sense of 'touch'. The word (and the act) denotes what sexual assault means in the context of a disability.

How can an out-of-practice lawyer rip apart a courtroom proceeding involving an influential accused and get justice for the blind survivor who cannot identify her perpetrator as she didn't 'see' him but only has an idea of how he looks, which stems from her sense of what his face looked like to her fingers?  

We have to give it to the Malayalam film industry for convincing us that 'superstars' can play commoners. Whether it's Mammootty in Kaathal - The Core or Mohanlal in Neru, who convinces us that he is indeed as helpless as he says he is, it is in Malayalam cinema that we can see icons as characters. 

There are examples aplenty from the films of both Mammootty and Mohanlal (the latter excelling in his portrayal of the everyday man and his problems in the 80s and 90s), and it is no surprise that this film industry can make both Lucifer and Neru starring Mohanlal or Bheeshma Parvam and Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam starring Mammootty with equal ease.

Words like 'roots', 'nativity', and 'culture' in the context of narrating a story of a particular region are more suited for describing the cinema that comes from Kerala than any other southern state. The euphoria that is seen in theatres when a favourite hero appears first on screen is not tied to how he is shown on screen in Malayalam. The dust doesn't have to fly from under Mohanlal's feet for the applause and whistles to fill the movie hall.

Actor Vijay tried playing an 'ordinary man' in Leo and succeeded to an extent, and Shah Rukh Khan makes a similar attempt in Dunki – a film let down by its poor writing.

However, in Neru, this aspect of watching a legendary actor pull off a simple role is made a possibility in its entirety. And this is also because Neru reverses Drishyam on its head (Mohanlal soared as George Kutty in both parts of Drishyam and it wasn't difficult for him to jump from there to a larger-than-life Lucifer and now Empuraan).

The Message & the Male 'Superstar'

While watching Neru, one tends to hark back to Pink and how the film educated an entire nation about the subject of consent. The film was also remade in Tamil as Nerkonda Paarvai, with Ajith Kumar in the lead role.

That being said, it is unfortunate that we still seem to need a male 'superstar' to effectively bat for equal rights and dignity for women – and more importantly, for a man to tell the world that it is important to take the stigma of sex off women.

But, at the same time, we now have 'superstars' who are conveying important messages on screen, which is consumed by scores of their male fans. Needless to say, I would take this any day over heroes either 'protecting' bubbly heroines or lecturing women on how they should behave.  

In Neru, the lines come out hurling from Mohanlal in an emotional, single-shot pre-interval point in the film. Even though the survivor herself says in a scene that she didn't 'touch' her perpetrator's face with consent but that it was a self-defence move (which is heightened to much scrutiny in a crescendo climax), the message of consent is brought out with greater impact when it's Mohanlal saying it out loud in an emotional outburst. 

Who Is the 'Saviour'?

Our social standards always find a woman at the receiving end of all taunts and threats in the name of honour. A family's honour is tied only to a woman's body. Be it in an extreme situation like it is in Neru, or even in a normal relationship that perhaps does not meet social or family approval, a man is never questioned or threatened like a woman is (caste-based honour killings are a different category altogether where religion and politics are at play). 

In general, a man does not have to 'fear' being in love, having a casual fling, or being in a romantic relationship before marriage or without being married – because we, as a society, never 'label' a man/call him names for any of the above. But a woman is damned whether she consents or not.  

Neru questions this aspect, and that was heartening to see. As a society, we usually view cases like we see in Neru as something that can affect a woman twice over – once when the crime actually happens, and the second time, when she's asked to describe it or relive that day in multiple investigations. 

But the film has a few dialogue-free, nuanced moments, with characters' motives and intentions revealed just through their expressions. There is a near-silent scene wherein both the blind survivor and this "lost in life" lawyer Vijaymohan are left to figure out whether he should take up her case – and this silence is answered in another scene when Vijayamohan says that he "does not mind if he fails, but this girl cannot."

It is in such precise moments of clarity and self-awareness, along with a trepidation to meet the impossible-to-win challenge, that heroes and heroines are born. 

Neru has a closing scene that perhaps is an answer to the question of why all the stigma arising from sex is placed only on women. The survivor walks triumphantly out of the courtroom after removing the dupatta that was covering her face all along – a sign of conveying to the audience that she is no longer in shame.

The media waits for her appearance, but when a cameraman opens the lens cover to start filming her exit, a woman reporter stops him. We see the survivor walk ahead with her head held high, without the fear of having her face filmed. On the one hand, there is nothing for the survivor to feel ashamed about, but on the other hand, the media (and by extension, society) should also learn how to treat survivors of sexual assault.

This high-speed silent shot is intercut with a scene wherein Mohanlal – one of Malayalam cinema's longest enduring icons – walks away turning his back to the camera, merging into the crowd like a common man.

The fact that we still need a man to give a woman her agency is a pertinent aspect, but we also have to acknowledge that Neru shows that we do have some men who are willing to walk away from staking claim to that kind of spotlight.

Qualities like inner strength, intelligence, and courage – which define a woman's sense of self, equality, empowerment, and reemergence after a traumatic incident – almost always come from the woman alone.  

(Sujatha Narayanan is a content strategist, creative producer, and film writer. She tweets @N_sujatha08. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)