Story

Mayuri (Nayantara) is a struggling single mother who aspires to be an actress. Mayuri stays with her friend Swathi (Lakshmi Priya Chandramouli) and attends auditions. There used to be a mental asylum few decades back in a remote jungle. Legend has it that there is a famous patient called Maya who gets killed after giving birth to a baby girl. A film is being made with that subject. A book is written by a foreigner with a thorough research material. Rest of the story is all about how these seemingly three different backdrops converge into one and mystery is solved.

Artists Performance

Actors: It’s mostly a mellowed and subtle performance for Nayantara. She does a fabulous job of emoting nuances. Aari is intense in a role of two dimensions. Lakshmi Priya Chandramouli is endearing as a friend. Mime Gopi gives a fervent performance as a movie director. Amzath Khan is believable as an editor.

Technical departments

Story - screenplay - direction: Story of the film is simple. What makes this film seemingly intricate is the layered structure and complex screenplay. The director has carefully used black&white and color palette to narrate the movie in such a way that there will not be any confusion. He has also used screenplay cleverly to confuse the audience in the beginning and then resolve the puzzle in systematic manner towards the climax. However, some of the scenes appear redundant. Narration is pretty slow. Usage of different colors for different planes reminds me of Kannada indy film Lucia. Transporting audience into screen reminds us of a Woody Allen’s creative film ‘The Purple Rose of Cairo’.

Other departments: It’s very difficult to a shoot the film in black & white and get the desired depth in visuals. Sathyan Sooryan succeeds to get it right with his classy cinematography. Music director Ron Yathan Yohaan has used instruments that are usually preferred in Hollywood and world cinema to score background music of this movie. It’s a challenging task to edit the movie which has several dimensions to it and editor TS Suresh does it with elegance. Dialogues doesn’t dominate the proceedings. This movie is shot slickly in limited budget and in limited locations.

Analysis: Mayuri is a kind of film that doesn’t follow the typical template of horror or horror comedies that are being made in Telugu/Tamil these days. The narration is classy and nuances are subtle. Plus points of the film are plot and screenplay. On the flip side, narration is at snail’s pace and scenes appear repetitive. If you have a thing for horror films, Mayuri is for you!