Certainly there is a lot of good out there, but there is evil and selfishness too, the extent of which contradicts the film’s rose-tinted take on humankind in these passages. In Uyare’s sanitised world, the mean passenger who objects to her scarred face not being veiled is a very rare exception. The public reaction to her after she is disfigured is far kinder than it would be in reality.
While on the subject of fairytales, Uyare’s only missteps involve its far-fetched optimism about the likely fate of a woman like Pallavi. The graph of their association overturns the global Disney Princess stereotype of women finding their salvation via gallant knights in shining armour on white horses, as it was overturned by Hollywood’s Maleficent and Frozen or their tentative precursor Pretty Woman in that final scene in which Edward (Richard Gere) references a dream that Vivian (Julia Roberts) earlier recounted to him and asks, “So what happened after he (the prince in the dream) climbed up the tower and rescued her?” to which Vivian replies, “She rescues him right back.” Uyare’s Vishal needs her as much as she needs him. In Uyare, no one but Pallavi saves Pallavi. And her equation with her new-found pal Vishal Rajashekharan (Tovino Thomas) is stripped of the male messiah complex prevalent in cinema worldwide, of the sort exemplified by that scene in the otherwise progressive recent Hindi film Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga in which Sweety (Sonam Kapoor) tells Sahil (Rajkummar Rao) to find others like her in other towns and “save them too”. She shares a heartwarming friendship with her classmate (Anarkali Marikar). The story gives Pallavi supporters not saviours. It raises no slogans but its messaging is clear. It is also a break from the trivialisation of harassment by much of mainstream Mollywood. It is a stark departure from the refrain about all men as paavam victims of inevitably traitorous women that is repeated in most Malayalam films. Uyare has been written by the acclaimed team of Bobby and Sanjay whose empathy for women shines through this soul-shattering yet uplifting film. His achievement lies in the fact that Uyare is not a film about Pallavi’s tragedy, but about her journey up to that point and thereafter. His sensitivity is evident in the way the assault is not treated like a twist in a thriller (the sound design in this portion is stupendous). I can speak for myself: I had begun to care.Īn acid attack is not a mere gimmick in debutant director Manu Ashokan’s hands. The feeling of shock arises despite there being not an atom of sensationalism in the scene, because the narrative is designed to draw the viewer into Pallavi’s dreams and hopes by then. That terrible moment comes as a shock even though the promotions have prepared us by letting it be widely known that Uyare is the story of an acid-attack survivor piecing her life back together.
To punish her for straining at the straitjacket in which he seeks to bind her, he throws acid on her face.
Pallavi in Uyare (High) is on the way to becoming a professional pilot when Govind’s possessiveness brims over.