Joji

Abstract

Reviewed by: Joji Abhishek Sarkar and Balagopal S. Menon Joji Produced by Bhavana Studios, Working Class Hero, and Fahadh Faasil and Friends, streaming on Amazon Prime Video from 7 April 2021. Directed by Dileesh Pothan. Written by Syam Pushkaran.Cinematography by Shyju Khalid. Edited by Kiran Das. Music by Justin Varghese. With Fahadh Faasil (Joji), Spadikam Sunny (Kuttappan), Baburaj (Jomon), Joji Mundakayam (Jaison), Unnimaya Prasad (Bincy), Alister Alex (Popy), and others. In the interviews that followed the release of the Malayalam film Joji, both its director Dileesh Pothan and its writer Syam Pushkaran made a point of specifying that the film “was inspired by Macbeth” (John). The lead actor, Fahadh Faasil, reiterated this sentiment in another interview, explaining that the film is not a direct adaptation of the play but “something inspired by Macbeth in today’s scenario” (PTI). Early in the opening credits of Joji, the film itself acknowledges that it is “Inspired from Shakespeare’s Macbeth,” but in its initial moments the plot has a closer resemblance to King Lear, due to its portrayal of intergenerational conflict and the children’s greed for their father’s property. The action unfolds in a sprawling and sequestered rubber plantation belonging to a Syrian Christian family in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The estate is ruled over by Kuttappan (Spadikam Sunny), a domineering patriarch whose adult sons cower before him. The eldest son, Jomon (Baburaj), is a hot-headed alcoholic who has no material ambitions, while the second son, Jaison (Joji Mundakayam), and his wife Bincy (Unnimaya Prasad), want to set up a separate household of their own in the city. The youngest son, Joji (Fahadh Faasil), severely resents Kuttappan’s authority and wants to emigrate, but is dependent on his father’s finances. When Kuttappan is incapacitated after suffering a stroke, Joji expects to be liberated from his father’s tyranny. But Kuttappan recovers substantially after a tricky surgery, to the extent that he can sign a check flawlessly and jeer at Jaison and Bincy’s desire for autonomy. [End Page 464] Moreover, when Joji comes to Kuttappan begging for money, he almost throttles Joji with his one working hand before unceremoniously tossing him on the floor. Joji decides to kill Kuttappan by switching his pills, a plan that is detected but connived at by Bincy. After the scheme succeeds and the sons start discussing partition of the property, Jomon increasingly suspects that Joji is responsible for Kuttappan’s death. When Jomon tries to coerce a confession out of Joji in a desolate field, Joji shoots him twice with an air pistol and then bombards him with a crude explosive (used commonly by local agriculturists to sculpt the hilly terrain). The autopsy of Jomon’s body reveals the air pistol pellets that are not consistent with Joji’s eyewitness account of the murder. Suspected by his family and cornered by the police, Joji tries to commit suicide by shooting himself in the skull with the same air pistol. But, bathetically enough, he survives the bid and ends up paralyzed. The film rivals Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy as regards the compactness of the plot. Previous adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedies in Mollywood (the moniker for the Malayalam film industry based in Kochi) include three films by Jayaraj—Kaliyattam (1997; based on Othello), Kannaki (2002; based on Antony and Cleopatra), and Veeram (2016; based on Macbeth). While these films took great liberties in reimagining Shakespeare’s plays, they seldom rewrote the basic plot or character elements of his texts. In this regard, Joji may be seen as a novel attempt in the industry as it tries to reimagine and reset Macbeth by taking it beyond the genre of tragedy. The film is thus an adaptation of Macbeth in a very qualified sense. It borrows plot or character elements from the play only selectively, most often inverting the ethos of Shakespeare’s tragedy. The choice of the protagonist makes this process amply clear. Joji is not “Valour’s minion” (1.2.19) or “Bellona’s bridegroom” (1.2.55) like Macbeth, but an indolent and feckless young man caught in an eternal adolescence. His puny, spare build is in stark contrast with...