Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s eight-part Net ix series is stunning to behold, yet its frequent soap opera-ness insulates the grandeur

t a time when hate speech lls the air with worrying regularity, the progressive-minded might welcome a lm which seeks to target such overt and covert attempts at communal polarisation and uphold a message of amity, even if it is lacking in other departments.

Filmmaker Dijo Jose Antony and screenwriter Sharis Mohammed appear to have been driven by this thought while making Malayalee from India, their third outing together. For, other than the strength of the politics that they attempt to convey and Nivin Pauly’s screen presence, there is not much that can hold this lm together convincingly.

Even the politics, at times, is conveyed in a manner that betrays an eagerness to draw some easy applause rather than genuine conviction. One can almost sense the force tting of various scenarios into the narrative to make some political points. Nuance and depth are in short supply, in the writing of the characters as well as in how the situations play out. Yet, the fact that it takes potshots at the religious extremists of all hues is commendable, although there is a bit of evident struggle in maintaining the delicate balance.

Alparambil Gopi is a character tailor-made for

Nivin Pauly, reminiscent of the loafer roles he essayed in lms like Oru Vadakkan Sel e. The one extra trait here he gets here is his aªnity towards right-wing communal politics.

With his close friend

Malghosh (Dhyan

Sreenivasan), who drags him into one problem after another, he does enough to shatter the peaceful atmosphere in his village. The

lm, predictably, plays out as a chronicle of the evolution of this character, when he interacts closely with the ones he hates blindly.

Dijo’s heavy-handed approach, marked by heightened and forced drama as well as stilted dialogues, with an attempt to convey everything in words, gets repeated here, just like it was in ‘Jana Gana Mana’. Some of the humour does work, but quite a lot of it does not. One can see a compulsion to pack in a lot of contemporary happenings into the narrative. At one point, the lm transforms into Aadujeevitham, with the protagonist ending up in situations similar to that lm. Later, a Malala-like character also pops up.

Female characters do not get their due in yet another Malayalam lm. Only Manju Pillai, as Gopi’s mother, gets a few scenes to perform. Anaswara Rajan has only a cameo role stretching a few minutes.

Despite its intentions and clear stand against communal politics, Malayalee from India ends up only as an average fare due to its overtly preachy character and forced nature of its narrative. Some subtlety and an organic narrative could have gone a long way into turning this into a much more relevant lm than it is now.

AA loafer with an a„inity for right-wing communal politics is forced to flee the country after he stirs up trouble in his village

Malayalee from India is currently running in theatres protection. But it’s the courtesans who really call the tunes, shielding their patron’s secrets and, on occasion, leading them to ruin.

A set of dramatic ashbacks sets the series in motion. Mallikajaan, it transpires, has secrets of her own — a ghastly crime in her past, buried and hushed with the aid of the debauched nawab Zul kar (Shekhar Suman). Once unearthed, it touches o— a power struggle between her and Fareedan (Sonakshi Sinha), a rival courtesan who embeds herself in Heera Mandi and sets about ru™ing old and new feathers.

The plot turns on Fareedan’s elaborate schemes for revenge, an awkwardly burgeoning romance — between Alamzeb and a rebellious young nawab, Tajdar (Taaha Shah) — and the agitation of the revolutionaries. The evil police superintendent, Cartwright ( Jason Shah), hovers around, digging for skeletons. Bhansali and his writers take time bringing the multiple strands together. Despite the immaculate sights and sounds on o—er, it becomes a long wait. It doesn’t help that the thrilling political backdrop of the era is painted in broad strokes (there is no mention of the Muslim

League and the demand for a separate Pakistan state).

Heera Mandi, a real neighbourhood in Lahore, was established in Mughal times, with its courtesans amassing considerable wealth and inuence down the ages. There is a fascinating history of tawaifs contributing to the freedom struggle (Bibbo’s character, for instance, appears modelled on Azizun Bai, a Kanpur courtesan who fought against the British during the 1857 revolt). Yet, in calling our attention to these unsung heroes,

Bhansali and his writers tend to go emotionally overboard, drawing well-meaning yet awkward parallels between the characters and India under British rule. Mallikajaan is taunted by

Zul kar for practising ‘divide and rule’. We are like birds in a gilded cage, Bibbo says, much like India — a golden bird in an imperial cage. In a surreal sequence, a funeral meeting transforms into an impromptu freedom song, a tawaif’s emancipation via death likened to a nation gaining ‘azaadi’.

In Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022), the eponymous heroine played by Alia Bhatt advocated for the dignity of sex workers in ‘60s Mumbai. The dancers and singers in

Heeramandi are frequently accused of sex work — the show, gracefully, doesn’t elide this aspect of courtesan life. Mallikajaan runs a tight ship but stands up for her own in public. In court, she defends the high social status — as centres of re nement and culture — that the kothas enjoyed. Even Fareedan, at the peak of her villainy, responds with solidarity and concern for her peers.

Filmed on a massive budget,

Heeramandi is stunning to behold. For its lighting tricks and sheer compositional wizardry, the series is a winner (the four cinematographers are Sudeep Chatterjee, Mahesh Limaye, Huenstang Mohapatra, and Ragul Dharuman). Bhansali also pays heart-on-sleeve tributes to classics like Mughal-E-Azam and Pakeezah — the pirouetting dancers on rooftops could belong in Kamal Amrohi’s lm — and there is a passing nod to KL Saigal, who played the rst Hindi Devdas onscreen, a legacy continued by Dilip Kumar and later Shah Rukh Khan in Bhansali’s own 2002 lm.

Fardeen Khan exudes kohl-eyed menace as the nawab Wali Mohammed, while Koirala surrenders body and soul to Mallikajaan, teasing scraps of humanity from an overblown part. Nivedita

Bhargava and Jayati Bhatia are delightful as a pair of gabby attendants, Satto and Phatto. Richa Chadha, working her high and hearty laughter, gets too short-lived a role. The series could have stuck with seasoned performers like Chadha and Sanjeeda Sheikh; instead, it’s the central lovers, atly played by Segal and Shah, who occupy a bulk of the runtime. For its closing episodes, Heermandi enters a realm of gothic abstraction that is Bhansali’s mark. In the ery nal scene, the women of Heera Mandi descend upon the streets, a sea of torch-bearing protesters storming a fort. It’s Bhansali boldly reversing the end of Padmaavat (2018), where hordes of ghoonghat-clad women strode into a pit of re, singing not of freedom.

Heeramandi is currently streaming on Net ix