Enthadaa Saji movie review: A vague script on divine intervention that desperately needed some

Cast: Nivetha Thomas, Kunchacko Boban, Jayasurya, Sidhartha Siva, Prayaga Martin, Arya Rohit, Benny P. Nayarambalam, Rajesh Sharma

Director: Godfy Xavier Babu

Language: Malayalam

In the first half hour of Enthadaa Saji, the writer’s irreverence towards authority and religious dogma, the female rebellion in the script, the bird’s eye view of a tightly knit community and a flash of an idea involving a sacred icon hold out the promise of a divine comedy (read that in a literal sense, not as a reference to Dante’s epic).

Sajimol Thomas (Nivetha Thomas) is a resident of small-town Kerala whose singleton status and broken engagement are the subject of gossip and intrusive jibes in writer-director Godfy Xavier Babu’s Enthadaa Saji. Sajimol has a mind of her own and is talented, but she is lazy and directionless. She also fails to recognise how supportive her parents are.

The protagonist’s story unfolds on screen against the backdrop of the goings-on in the local Christian community. This motley group of colourful characters includes a money-minded parish priest (Sidhartha Siva),a conscientious sacristan (Benny P. Nayarambalam) and a cynical congregation. The script derives much of its satire from its disdain for the Achchan (Father).

Sajimol’s journey takes an unplanned direction when the statue of a Christian saint comes to life before her in church one day. St Rocky presents himself in the form of Kunchacko Boban. This turn of events leads to a couple of interesting conversations between them, following which the narrative starts drifting and transforms into an aimless haze.

Soon, the interactions between Sajimol and the saint yield diminishing returns despite Kunchacko’s ample charm. And Nivetha’s portrayal of the young woman’s artlessness, though initially sweet, begins to wear thin. The storyline then flits from the choices she makes for her future, to the parishioners’ shenanigans, a flaky romance, a robbery, a chase, and back to Sajimol and St Rocky. Laid over several of the later scenes are quotes from the Bible in Rocky’s voice supplemented by text on screen that combine to make Enthadaa Saji even more inexplicable than it already is. Seriously, what exactly is the film about?

The only worthwhile development after Rocky’s arrival in Enthadaa Saji is that the writing completely normalises a woman making overtures towards a man she fancies instead of waiting passively for him to act. It is particularly significant that she receives encouragement on this front from an exalted figure who does not even consider her gender a factor in the decision. That said, Jayasurya and Nivetha are a casting mismatch – they look like a man and a little girl hooking up, and their scenes together are decidedly bland.

The early spark that was provided by the cheeky commentary about the Church in the first half of Enthadaa Sajinever goes beyond being a source of humour. This is disappointing because Malayalam cinema has done so much better for so long. Over the decades, this film industry has generated a steady stream of films that have been set among Kerala’s Christians and have critiqued the community’s rituals, institutions, social mores and cultural practices, with depth and– this is crucial in the matter of minority representation – without malice. As recently as 2020 onwards, we have seen a string of such films including the excellent Anjaam Pathiraa in which Midhun Manuel Thomas zeroed in on a priest covering up sexual abuse, Jude Anthany Joseph’s Sara’s that dealt with a woman’s right to an abortion, Dileesh Pothan’s Joji with its wealthy, dysfunctional Christian family embroiled in a succession battle, Nithin Lukose’s Paka (River of Blood) packed with Christian symbols that underlined the disconnect between religious theory and practice among its characters, and a community refusing to confront or even acknowledge the evil in its midst in Don Palathara’s as-yet-unreleased Family. (Note: Anwar Rasheed’s Trance that was about off-mainstream, corporatised churches would usually be mentioned in such a discussion, but I found it comparatively superficial.)

While identifying an artist by their religion is generally avoidable, in the present minority-bashing phase that India is going through, it is relevant to point out that many of these Malayalam films have been made by directors emerging from the Christian community itself, a fact that speaks volumes about Kerala. Not only is the open-mindedness of these filmmakers remarkable, there is also something very beautiful about a state that makes a minority group feel so secure, that they have the self-confidence enough to routinely spotlight the flaws in their own community and in the practice of their faith on a platform as public as cinema without fearing that their works will be weaponised by majoritarian forces. These Malayalam films stand tall – and stand apart – from Hindi cinema that horrifically stereotyped and othered Christians in earlier decades, and has since nearly erased the community from its stories. This is the socio-political context in which a film like Enthadaa Saji has been made.

Godfy Xavier Babu had a slew of wonderful Malayalam films from which to take learnings, which makes Enthadaa Saji’s vagueness and tortuous writing especially unpardonable. Certainly, the Achchan here is amusing, as is the clear-eyed skepticism with which Sajimol’s Dad views the clergy, but Enthadaa Saji is clueless about how to proceed with both. It thus ends up as a pale shadow of the numerous Malayalam films that have scrutinised a minority community intelligently and used the specifics of their settings to tell universally resonant stories. Even Kunchacko Boban’s charisma cannot save this wannabe project.

Rating: 1.5 (out of 5 stars) 

Enthadaa Sajiwas released in theatres in April 2023. The film is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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