Insha(Neestream , Malayalam)
Starring Prathana Sandeep, Directed by Siju Vijayan
Rating: **
Sometimes the best of intentions can go to waste, specially if you have no backup hardware for your emotions. Insha is heartfelt emotionally flush but finally too aimless and dull to put forward the dreams and yearnings of a 13-year old girl, well played by young Prathana Sandeep.
At the cusp of puberty, one would expect the girl’s immobile condition to secrete a chaos of dreams and yearnings. But none of that. No curiosity about life and, ahem, sex. All Insha wants is to see the sea. Just a hop away from the ocean , her wheelchair-bound existence has robbed her of all rights to step out of her home. Her bully of an uncle who (could do with some tutoring in child rearing) wouldn’t hear of Insha taking an afternoon out with her supportive friends who then have to plan her secret outing lest Uncleji gets to know.
It is baffling why Insha would not be allowed to go out with her friends specially when they are so caring and attentive. The director constructs his case for Insha’s “normal” joys on inexcusably shaky grounds. The child actors playing Insha’s chums are so cloying in their sweetness that the mood of the proceedings begins to get progressively annoying.
By the time a tragic turning-point is reached in the lifeless plot, it is too late to breathe fire into the dying embers .Tragically a film founded on the noblest of intentions resembles propaganda for the paraplegic associations’ annual fund-raising event. Insha’s desire to witness the waves(after seeing the seas) is so mundane it makes no sense to make it the central crisis of a plot woefully bereft of real drama
The acting is largely of the so-what-is-my-next-line variety . There is little resonance or lucidity in the characters .And that that includes Insha’s kind grandmother and forever-hysterical mother. A female teacher keeps dropping in with sugary homilies. She has no idea how to improve the girl’s restricted movement so she can fly higher that fate willed.Not even a warning to the bullying uncle.
At the end life seems to have worked out well for Insha.We see her blissfully settled with a partner(her childhood chum), the coveted sea-view at her toes .Barring the girl who plays the title role the children though natural are sadly devoid of charisma. The film is turgid in tone and severely restricted in its persuasions.Somewhat like the protagonist in her wheelchair.