Dhoomam movie review: Not enough zest, heft or Fahadh Faasil magic

Cast: Fahadh Faasil, Aparna Balamurali, Roshan Mathew, Vineeth, Joy Mathew, Anu Mohan, Achyuth Kumar, Nandhu

Director: Pawan Kumar

Language: Malayalam

Avinash, a loyal servant of capitalist enterprise, is struck by pangs of conscience when he learns of the extent of devastation wreaked by his company’s products. Dhoomam (Smoke) is an account of how he arrives at that realisation, his attempt at course correction and the penalty he is asked to pay for his crimes. There is no logical explanation forwhy he, a marketing honcho of a cigarette manufacturing corporation, is picked for punishment and not the owners, nor is his sudden change of heart convincing, but that is the least of Dhoomam’s problems.

A scene in which Avinash (Fahadh Faasil) presents an idea to the organisation’s board of directors is emblematic of this film’s most fundamental flaw. As he introduces his plan to the bosses, a barrage of interruptions come his way. His strongest supporter on the board, the managing director Sid (Roshan Mathew), has to intervene in his defence and ask him to get to the point. Because Avinash was trying to sound clever but what he effectively did was go round and round in circles. That last sentence pretty much sums up Dhoomam too – in a bid to sound clever and cool and to build up suspense, the script goes round and round in circles.

Dhoomam is a suspense thriller in which Avinash is forced to extricate himself and his wife Diya (Aparna Balamurali) from a horrible fix. As the couple work towards unravelling the mystery of how to get out of that tight spot, Diya discovers her husband’s terrible truth and he must confront the damage he has intentionally inflicted on the public. The opening passage generates curiosity about who and what are behind Avinash and Diya’s troubles, but the weakness of the writing is evident early on.

Sample this. The first time they go out together, Avinash and Diya attend an office party. At the do, Avinash informs her that Sid had urged him to bring his girlfriend along, and upon hearing that he didn’t have a special woman in his life, told him there’s nothing money cannot buy. At this, Diya asks Sid if he thinks he bought her. His response is: “No, I earned you.” This is supposed to be clever banter, but … how do I put it? … oh yes … yikes!

Or sample this. The board of directors are shown deliberating on the statutory warnings against cigarette consumption that are placed on screen in Indian films as per long-running government directives. The lines spoken by these men suggest that they have not necessarily all been closely following developments on this front and have not discussed the warnings threadbare over time, as the top management of a real-life cigarette manufacturer certainly would have.

The construction of that scene is so amateurish that it is tough to believe Dhoomam is written and directed by the acclaimed Kannada director Pawan Kumar who gave us the smashing 2013 indie Lucia and 2016’s U-Turn. The latter spawned a million remakes including Carefulin Malayalam helmed by V.K. Prakash, starring Sandhya Raju, Vijay Babu and Jomol.

Lucia’s snazziness came naturally to the director, Dhoomam comes across as wannabe. In a sense, this new film is an extension of U-Turn’s preoccupation with accountability for human actions, whether they are calculated, casual or merely careless, including consequences we do not foresee or may not be aware of. It is obviously admirable that Kumar, the Malayalam film industry and the producers of Dhoomam – the Kannada cinema giant Hombale Films, the banner behind the blockbuster KGF Franchise and Kantara – were willing to take on the country’s powerful cigarette behemoths and their political allies, lambast them and shame them unequivocally. Dhoomam does not tread diplomatically around its theme, which makes it necessary to stress that this is courage the Hindi film industry for one would not show today.

Dhoomam’s courage and high-powered credentials – including the talented and respected cast it has reeled in – are not, however, complemented by the writing. The twists have potential, but the dialogues are either ham-handed or downright dull, and the narrative is stretched. There is not enough attention to detail in the characterisation of some significant players in the plot including the antagonist, the policeman investigating the case and even Diya. Her existence within the story, for one, is derived entirely from her relationship with Avinash – she has no identity independent of him, and she exists solely as a vehicle to convey a lesson to him.

This failing further exacerbates another: that Diya is the only clearly identifiable woman with a semblance of a storyline in the script. The rest are all men. All of them.

Women may be relegated to the background in Dhoomam, but the script’s subconscious gender prejudice is not. Ultimately, this film is about the long-term lethality of nicotine, the strategies employed by industrialists to tap basic human frailties so that healthy individuals enter a spiral of addiction from which escape is unlikely. Through this micro picture, Dhoomam aims at depicting a macro view of the unscrupulousness inherent in capitalism. This is a noble goal. However, Kumar engages with the hazards of smoking without acknowledging the differing social attitudes to women versus men smokers. Indian society by and large treats cigarettes as a health consideration for men but tends to pass moral judgement on women who smoke. This mindset manifests itself in the way conservatives tend to notice women smokers more than men. Dhoomam is an unwitting reflection of this reality – of eyes that dwell on what they are most scandalised by, whether consciously or unconsciously, and thus assume that the part of the picture they are focused on is the complete picture. Dhoomam may purport to be concerned about humankind in general, but it reveals its bias with the gender-centric skew in its images of the humans most vulnerable to insidious advertising and cigarette addiction. Both are exemplified in this film by women. More specifically, women and maternity.

Fahadh Faasil and Aparna Balamurali deliver strong performances to the extent that they can in the face of writing that is bereft of nuance, lazy about its politics and hazy at several places. Dhoomam’s cast has a formidable track record, but the only one who sculpts a somewhat memorable character out of the faulty written material is Roshan Mathew. The young actor’s endearing turn as the musician Sasikumar in the recent Neelavelicham was proof of what he can deliver when blessed with top-of-the-line writing. Sid shows that he is also capable of rising above a deficient script. He knows precisely what measure of swag and innate charm to pour into a cocky slimeball to make Avinash’s employer evil yet hard to hate.

Though this Malayalam film is set in Karnataka, the intersection of the cultures of two states yields nothing in particular, and the Karnataka countryside is not explored as beautifully as nature is usually captured in Malayalam cinema. Dhoomam features a handful of stunning shots of verdant lands and unique rock formations, but the cinematography lacks a signature here.

Dhoomam’s message is crucial and the plot includes some twists with promise, but the film takes too long to get to them. The script is bereft of depth, zest and soul, resulting in a narrative that has limited emotional impact and lacks the urgency one would expect from the life-and-death situation at its centre.

Rating: 2 (out of 5 stars) 

Dhoomam is in theatres

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial

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