'James and Alice' is a mixed bag with reality and fantasy thrown in. The movie is set in contemporary times and narrates the tale of two people in love. Though this is a love story, 'James and Alice' is not the usual run of the mill romance. It is intense and has a depth in narration that is appealing.
But the movie is too dramatic at times that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The narration of the movie is something that Malayali audiences are not familiar with. 'James and Alice', like the title suggests have two protagonists namely James and Alice.
James is a fine arts student and is an artiste. He falls in love with the daughter of a planter. Alice is a banker. Their love life is beautiful and they get married. The story goes on to reveal that marriage is not a bed of roses with James finding no time to be with his beloved, always engaged in his artistic endeavors.
The first half gets over in one and a half hours. The entire movies has a two hour fifty minutes duration. There are a lot of messages strewn in the narrative as the movie progresses. The before marriage and after marriage life is shown and things take a turn when Alice asks for divorce from her negligent husband. An accident, a vegetative state and some recriminations later the movie falls back on track to the climax.
The narrative is what makes the movie different. After James turns into a vegetative state, we have a new narrator named Peter, who describes himself as Chitragupta Punyalan. His advises and guidelines leads the plot. This strategy used by the story writer is laudable and the movie's director Sujith Vasudev's execution of the same is interesting.
Prithviraj and Vedhika excels as the lead characters and they prove their mettle yet again with this movie. The duo has previously acted together in 'Kaviyathalaivan'. Other lead actors including Parvathy Nair, Manju Pilla, Sudheer Karamana et al are good. Anupama Parameshwaran too put in a surprise cameo.
Sujith Vasudev has done well for a directorial debut. There are certain elements that he will have to tweak to work for the larger audience. Gopi Sunder at the music section has done well yet again. The visually alluring frames need a special mention and the cinematographer has done well to give an artistic rendering to the tale. All in all, 'James and Alice' is a watchable movie which can interest the viewer.
Rating: 2.50 / 5.0
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