‘Christy’ movie review: Malavika Mohanan’s film has a promising set-up let down by clueless writing

Malavika Mohanan and Mathew Thomas in a still from ‘Christy’
| Photo Credit: Think Music India/YouTube

When Roy first meets Christy, he does not get to see her face. Her face turned against the wall, she sits amid torn photographs in a room marked by its disorderliness. A confused Roy (Mathew Thomas), who had come to Christy (Malavika Mohanan) for tuition to improve his failing grades, quickly leaves the house. That scene, and the ones following it, seem to have been written in a specific way to convey Christy’s state of mind at that time. Yet, as the narrative progresses, we are slowly shut out of her mind, so much so that at crucial points, we are left wondering about what she might be thinking.

One is not sure whether the scriptwriters intended it in this way, to convey the increasing distance of Roy from Christy, but it doesn’t work and ends up destroying all the hard work it had put into building the chemistry between the teenager and his elder teacher. Even though the movie is named Christy, we see everything here from Roy’s point of view. Debutant Alvin Henry has quite a task at hand to portray their relationship in a convincing manner, and he does this part with some finesse.

The teenager’s aimlessness, confusions and recklessness all make for a heady concoction, drawing him further towards Christy, for whom Roy‘s calming presence is a much-needed solace at a difficult time in her life. For Roy, it is not love at first sight; rather he develops a liking for her when his friends begin making jokes about them. The script, by writers Benyamin and G.R. Indugopan, hits its high points in these parts where the narrative progression is quite fluid. Govind Vasantha’s music elevates these phases marked by Roy’s eagerness and Christy’s indecision. The only thing that spoils the mood is the way almost the entire cast gets the coastal dialect wrong.

As the narrative progresses, however, we are left confused by Christy’s actions. At one point, she seems to be shocked by some of his actions, but later she is shown to mildly approving of them. This also happens to be the last time we have any clue of what goes on in her mind. Later, we see Roy taking all kinds of extreme measures to be close to her, but all we get to see from her are empty stares or tears. We really are not sure whether she is restraining herself or dying to reject him.

Thanks to the shoddy writing, the movie remains stuck in an airport for a long time, where nothing really happens. It almost seemed the writers were struggling without ideas to end the beautiful thing that they had created. They were also probably looking at a safe space to land in, without ruffling too many feathers considering the past criticism against stories of this nature. Though they manage to land safely, the soul of what they created gets killed in the process.

Christy is currently running in theatres