Movie Review: Pranchiyettan and the Saint

On a dark night, CE Francis(Mammootty) light candles on the graves of his ancestors. After lighting the candles, he moves away and watches the grave from a distance. The ghosts of his ancestors come outside grave and discusses Francis’s mental turmoil. In between the discussion, they ask Francis to return back to the church. Inside the church, Francis prays in front of the idol of Saint Francis of Assissi. To Francis’s surprise, the saint(Jesse Fox Allen) appears in flesh before Francis. Then, Francis narrates his story to the saint.

Since his family, based in Thrissur, made their money by trading rice, Francis was nicknamed Aripranchi by his classmates. While in high school, he fell in love with Omana. But his classmate Jose created a misunderstanding between them. Then, Jose and Omana fell in love gradually. Now, years later, Omana(Khusboo) and Jose(Siddique) have become doctors and are married to each other. Francis discontinued his studies in Std X and is a very successful businessman in Thrissur.

Owing to Francis’s educational background, everyone calls him Pranchiyettan on his face and Aripranchi behind his back derogatively. Francis, pained by this, decides to contests as the president in the local chapter of a well known club. There again, Jose contest against him. Francis is coached by Vasu Menon(Innocent) his friend, Yousuf(Idavela Babu) his personal secretary, Bahuleyan(Ramu) a friend, Uthuppu(TG Ravi) a well wisher and Supran(Tini Tom) his driver. Despite all this, Jose defeats Francis. This defeat leads to other attempts by Francis to gain respectability in the community. These attempts bring Ajay Nambiar(Balchandran Chullikkadu), Padmashree(Priyamani) and Polly(Master Ganapathy) into his life. But, these attempts also result in the mental turmoil of Francis.

Renjith dons three roles behind the scenes – the script writer, the director and the voice of Saint Francis of Assissi while speaking Malayalam. He excels in all the three roles. In the script, Francis narrates his story to the saint. So, it takes the viewer from one incident to another till it leads to the climax. The incidents of Francis’s life moves smoothly without taxing the viewer. As a director, he ensures that his characters delivers the right performance without going overboard. Since the story is set in Thrissur, all of the characters converse in local dialect of Malayalam. The directors steers away from evoking deliberate laughter while the characters use this dialect. Instead, it amuses the audience.

Mammootty delivers a flawless performance as Pranchiyettan. He uses the Thrissur dialect effortlessly making the character more adorable and believable. Mammootty’s Prachiyettan is a guy who suffers from an inferiority complex because of his educational background. Everybody wants his money. But they are not ready to give him respect. Unfortunately, Pranchiyettan knows this. But he is taken advantage of easily.

All the other performers suits the role. But it is Jagathy Sreekumar who is very impressive in a very short role as the Gandhian Deen Dayal. Deen Dayal is not a funny person. But his interactions with Polly provides a lot of light moments.

Watch this.

Language: Malayalam

Genre: Drama

Rating: ***

Tags: Movies,Mammootty,Innocent,Priyamani,Renjith,Drama