Oru Muthassi Gadha

<p>It narrates the story of a wealthy grandmother, Susamma who helps to change her daughter Jeena’s Mother in law Leelamma’s repressed behaviour by fulfilling her bucket list. Later they together start a group for elderly and abandoned people. Sibi lives, with his wife Jeena, daughter Alice, son Alan and his aged Mother, Leelamma, in Kochi. Leelamma, is ill-tempered and meddles with everyone and harasses activities of hired help. Due to her harassment, nobody agrees to work for them until Babu, a Bengali worker agrees to work for them. Leelamma surprisingly gets along well with Babu and the family gets some respite for a while. At his Boss’ suggestion, he decides to go on a family trip. However, on the day before the trip Leelamma due to an altercation with Sibi, backs out of the trip. Sibi and his family decide to continue with the planned trip and call up Sibi’s Mother-in-law, Susamma to keep her company. Susamma is sociable and modern in outlook, she is well versed with technology and open to new age fun. After some initial well-meaning tiffs Leelamma and Susamma bond with each other. The two along with Babu decide to celebrate Leelamma’s birthday and complete her bucket wish list. On one night after a celebratory round of drinks, Leelamma starts narrating her love story from her college days involving her then classmate Zachariah. She, however, passes out before she can finish her story. The next day, she wakes up to an eager Susamma waiting for the ending. Leelamma continues to say she broke up with him and regrets that she could not meet him. Susamma finds all this pent up anger in Leelama is due to this absence of closure in her early life and decides to find Zachariah. They initially planned on going with Babu but the next day, they realise he had left the place without informing them. Not knowing what to do, as Susamma could not drive too far places, they had asked the help of Alice, their granddaughter whose boyfriend, Milind, tagged along as someone might harass Alice. Together with Leelamma, Alice and Milind Susamma visits Zachariah’s native place Kurathikad. They unexpectedly find Babu there with their neighbour’s daughter and finds out he isn’t a Bengali but acted as such to stay in touch with his lover. Along with some help from Babu, Leelamma’s old classmate Kurup and his grandson, Briley, they locate the now aged Zachariah. However, upon meeting with Zachariah, Leelamma slaps him and leaves from there immediately. On the way back to an angered Susamma, Leelamma reveals that, she had purposefully misled Susamma with the ending of her love story to slap Zachariah who had left Leelamma to fly to the USA on a scholarship after jilting her through a letter and that now she feels relieved. Leelamma and Susamma, later go to an old age home and reveals their plan to institute a programme called ‘Oru Muthassi Gadha’ whereby every month they help complete one wish off one inmate which they never had a chance to fulfil in their youth. The pair then proceeds with Babu to Airport to fly America and complete the remaining items on Leelamma’s bucket list. is the second feature film of director-actor . In February 2016, Joseph announced the film through his page along with its first-look poster. Due to disinterest from ‘s leading actresses, director Joseph hired fresh faces for the film through casting calls. Principal photography began in March 2016. While it stars newcomers in the lead roles, it also features , , and in supporting roles who were also part of Joseph’s debut venture, . signed into play the role of granddaughter but later opted out due to date issues and was replaced by . On 27 August 2016, director Joseph introduced “Rowdy Leelamma”, played by a newcomer, who is one of the two central characters of the film. The soundtrack was released by on 4 September 2016 with songs composed by and lyrics written by Harinarayanan B K. released on 14 September 2016, during the occasion of ‘s state festival, in 50 theaters. The film received favorable reviews from critics. gave a rating of 3.5/5 and mentioned that is a film that will make you want to give your dear and near a call and have a hearty chat. gave a rating of 3/5 and commented that is worth watching and said that ‘The director works as if he has a magic wand that makes this theme, which is not exactly fresh – engaging’. gave a rating of 3.25/5 and said that ‘Overall, with some decent performances, Oru Muthassi Gadha could be a good pick for families with it’</p>