Aadujeevitham Malayalam Movie Review:- Aadujeevitham, Benyamin’s book is written in the first person, which makes it very personal for the reader. Also, the first-person telling gives the author a lot of room to explore side stories and give the character all the information they need to know about the world. In his comments, Prithviraj was right when he said that one big difference between the book and the movie is the level of detail in the book. The hardest thing for scriptwriter and director Blessy was showing all of the main character’s feelings without using too many words, since he was showing the movie to the world in the third-person perspective. The interesting thing about this movie is how he did that, which was like going on a very slippery slope.
Aadujeevitham Malayalam Movie Review | Prithviraj Sukumaran, Blessy, Amala Paul | Feel the reality of desert
This whole text doesn’t matter for people who have already read the book. The movie is mostly about a regular man named Najeeb who left Kerala in the early 1990s and went to the Middle East to support his family. But when they got there, Najeeb and Hakkim got lost because they didn’t speak the language well. They were then made to work as farmers in the desert against their will. In Aadujeevitham, “The Goat Life,” we see all the hard times Najeeb had to go through in the desert.
Aadujeevitham Novel / Book
I read the book after shooting for Aadujeevitham began. I imagined Prithviraj as Najeeb because of concept art posters and other materials that were floating around online while I read the book. The interesting thing about Blessy’s version of Aadujeevitham was that because he changed the story, he knew where to put more emphasis. The movie is called “The Goat Life,” but what we get is more like “The Escape Life.” And that makes sense, since that’s the part of the story that gives people hope.
Because they are artistic additions, small changes, and reorganisations, Blessy is able to make this movie his own version of the story. Almost like he did some script cutting after writing a long one based on Benyamin’s material and then chose to cut out ideas and subplots that weren’t necessary for the survival story part of the movie. In the book, Benyamin talks about how each goat was named based on how it looked or how it behaved. But in the movie, that whole track is cut. To be honest, I wanted Prithviraj to call a goat Mohanlal, but the thought of how corny that would be made me cringe. There are many similar scenes in the movie that were cut or trimmed because they weren’t adding anything to the story. This shows how well Blessy can read the crowd.
I already told you that they cut down on a lot of the small details in the book and put more emphasis on the tracks that took up the least amount of room. One big example is the Sainu track, where Blessy lets out his inner Padmarajan in a very emotional love scene between Najeeb and Sainu. Also, it was really cool how this love song connected the different parts of Najeeb’s life. Lack of food and water in the desert have made Najeeb very thirsty. But in his home country, he used to be a man who dug for sand by hand. It was also beautiful how the scene changed from a desert stream overflowing with water to an overhead shot of a riverside in Kerala. The desert storm story was the most impressive part of the movie in terms of how it looked and how dramatic it got. In contrast to the book, this event was given a lot of attention because it was a survival story. The photography, sound design, editing, and visual effects were all great.
Sunil KS’s photography isn’t after grandeur just for the sake of it. People don’t want the desert in Aadujeevitham to look pretty, and Sunil’s frames always kept that hated look. The only problem I had was that the DI work made it hard to tell Najeeb apart from the background in some scenes. The choices of shots were great because they showed exactly how the actors felt. I didn’t look at my watch once during the 172-minute movie because it was moving at such a good pace. From a DOP point of view, I thought Sreekarprasad was a cruel editor because he hadn’t kept up the much-talked-about camel eyeshot for that long. The movie’s soundtrack is important, and it was done very well. I also loved how Blessy used the bottle to show a big change in the story by keeping Ibrahim Khadiri alive silently. AR Rahman’s main theme music for Aadujeevitham was placed perfectly; it was basic, right on point, and perfect. Benyamin used small details to show how Najeeb thought, and Blessy did the same thing with makeup. There is also some great work by Ranjith Ambadi in this movie, like the chapped lips, swollen feet, long hair, and brown skin.
Prithviraj Sukumaran in Aadujeevitham
Prithviraj Sukumaran’s change from young Najeeb to slim Najeeb felt a lot like a change in how good an actor he was. His use of a lot of “Ah”s and “Eh”s when playing normal, middle-class roles has always bothered me. From time to time, we see Prithviraj, and to be honest, it’s not a good start. After the change, you can almost see how this character pushes Prithviraj as an actor to explore or enter a place he has never really been in. The weaker form of Najeeb doesn’t have many lines of dialogue. However, there is a part of the movie where the thin Najeeb talks to Hakkim. During those parts, the way the conversation was delivered felt a little off, but as the movie went on, those parts became less jittery as you got to know the character better. It was interesting to see how Prithviraj looks when he wakes up in Kunjikka’s room. In real life, he looked a lot like Najeeb.
When he played Ibrahim Khadiri, Jimmy Jean-Louis showed that kind of ease and understanding. In the movie, KR Gokul plays Hakkim, who is young and ignorant. His character was likeable because of the innocent look on his face, and the parts of Hakkim in the desert storm were sad to watch. Even though they don’t have much screen time together, Amala Paul and Prithviraj worked really well together as the main character, Sainu.
The answer to your question is “no.” I am not awed by how great this movie is. For someone who has read the book, the lost-in-translation parts happened all over the place. One example is the death of the first worker. But looking at it as a movie fan who would have seen the whole thing while reading the book, I was very pleased with the creative changes Blessy made to turn the 43-chapter book into a 172-minute movie.
