Archana 31 Not Out Malayalam Movie Review

Picture Courtesy: FilmGappa

“Is this girl even 5 feet? She looks awfully small, with this height and weight, will she be able to bear a child?” This was the dialogue uttered by one of the brokers who came to arrange an alliance for me. He said the dialogue and busted out laughing with his pan-stained teeth as if he cracked the century’s funniest joke. Till my death I will not be able to forget the humiliation I felt, that I wanted the earth to split and vanish into the same. Well, like these there were at least 15-20 wedding proposal dramas that took place in my native for me. Almost every weekend visit from college hostel to home meant that there was some random guy or worse, some random group of people who will come to see me. I had to dress up, take a tray full of teacups and go stand in front of them so that they can rate me based on my looks and decide if they will take me or not. Wait a minute, isn’t that what happens in brothels too? Maybe except that you have to pay, to get women in brothels, and in the “civilized brothel” cultures of arranged marriages, women have to pay some guy and his family to take her to be the unpaid maid for a man-baby. Archana 31 Not Out, touches on these atrocities of arranged marriage set up from a surface level, making it digestible and like in the society, completely normalized.

Picture Courtesy: Gulf News

Just like Archana, the protagonist of the movie, I back then had no revolutionary thoughts. Honestly, I found this drama, fun because most of the time for these setups, the best snacks were arranged and once these people left, the foodie in me had a feast. What do you expect a 19-year-old to think who was raised in a rural village in Kerala, meticulously trained that everything she does will eventually lead to only one thing, marriage, kids, and building a family? As years went by and thank goodness for my Assumption college days, I started realizing how absolutely humiliating and patriarchal these customs were. Yet, I didn’t have the courage to go against the family and thus began my own adventures to intentionally break the alliances that came my way. From prank calling the groom’s family to learn cuss words in pure Malayalam and scaring the bejesus out of the annoying broker, I had so much fun.

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So, for me, the movie Archana 31 Not Out is relatable in parts. This is a movie that had potential and a unique premise of a twist just like another Malayalam movie called “Stand Up” but failed somewhere during the execution. Being an Archana myself in some foregone past and seeing lakhs of Archana(s) being manufactured in my native, still unknown of any future apart from unpaid labor in a domestic setup, Aishwarya Lekshmi’s character is relatable but somehow at some key points fell flat for me.

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Especially in the much-revered climax twist, which is great but her execution felt very stoic and dialogues were sugar-coated so that, the fragile egos of the typical Malayali crowd are not hurt. Well can’t blame, debutant feature film director Akhil Anilkumar, since on the face messaging has neither worked for that crowd. It’s decades of conditioning that needs to be unlearned, so hopefully slowly but steadily someday before extinction, we might learn to consider women as living beings and not property to be exchanged between families as unpaid domestic help. Also, just like me, may Archana(s) stay longer on the pitch, get a way out of the toxic setups they grew up in and realize that they are living beings with a character of their own and rights as any other human beings of this planet. And that they have the potential to dream and achieve beyond being enablers of someone else’s life.

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The setup and the supporting casts do deserve praise for their performance. Although some of the characters and their subplots felt unnecessary like that of Ramesh Pisharody and Indrans.

Picture Courtesy: Youtube

Hakkim Shah’s (One-Sided lover of Archana) and James Varghese’s (father of Archana) performances were notable and heartfelt. Wish the makers gave some importance to the cricket subplot beyond giving a comical connection to the 31 matches. The movie as it is could have been much better with a bit of crisp editing and removal of some very unnecessary sub narratives in the name of comedy which never landed.

Akhil Anilkumar, I hear is a promising director who proved his talent with a couple of short films and the latest anthology movie “Freedom Fight”, all of which I am yet to explore. I hope he never loses sight of unique stories and creates better narratives. With regards to Archana 31 Not Out, it’s a feel-good one-time watch, with some persistent points to think about despite its minimal impact.

You can watch Archana 31 Not Out movie on Amazon Prime Video.