2018 Review - The Real Kerala Story For Sensible Audience

Jude Anthany Joseph brings an ensemble cast of Kunchacko Boban, Tovino Thomas, Asif Ali, Vineeth Sreenivasan, Aparna Balamurali, Lal, Tanvi Ram, and others together in a survival drama, 2018. Based on the true events that took place in Kerala State in August 2018, the film is about human courage and everything that's needed to boost humanity in the toughest times. What a fictional film like 2012 does on a larger scale for the sake of entertainment, 2018 does the same with more humanly believable assets and an inspirational narrative. All that The Kerala Story does is spread hatred, and here is the true story from Kerala that does only one thing, and that's spreading positivity. Films like these are needed in times like this, when people are buying negativity for free for multiple agendas and getting brainwashed on celluloid. The only problem with 2018 is that it is highly overdramatized and fictionalised to bring cinematic elements, which might not be a problem for many viewers. It happened with me you know, during the screening. I was busy finding logic and practicality, while others were busy clapping. Overhyping things is quite common nowdays; then why the hell am I complaining? This time, I mean in positive way.Set in 2018, the film focuses on the Kerala floods that stunned the nation. It's a thriller with fewer thrills and more drama that explores the heroism of people who did not shy away from coming forward to save similar species and, above all, humanity. 2018 unfolds the lives of people from all walks of life who faced catastrophic consequences and the collective efforts put in by the brave people to survive the calamity. It is set in different parts of Kerala, gathering together the stories and situations of multiple disasters and how people fought them out by helping each other. That's what we adore, don't we?The positives of the film come from well-known cliches, and you can predict them easily. But that's the fun because you find yourself one of them and relate to their emotions and mindset. The emotional aspects of the film are too high for a common viewer, especially those who have gone through those or similar situations in their lives. All you need to take away from it is encouragement to battle the difficult times and never lose hope. Well, the negatives are plentiful too. As mentioned before, 2018 is an overdramatic flick. There are so many loops that don't make sense, but you are forced to forget all of them because the story is all about natural disasters. You may not like them or find logic in them, but you can't stop them. Below are a few instances.I have played football at Shivaji Park in heavy rain, and I couldn't hear my partner anywhere outside the 10-metre area, but here you'll see a man hearing the low-key voice of a child and his father while it's raining like cats and dogs and water is flooded up to 15-20 feet. Men would even hear the ringtone of a 2G-era phone in the heavy rain, but not shouts and screams. A college girl would cry for certificates when we know they are easily available on the internet, in PDF, or, in the worst case, the government or education boards would issue new ones after the normalcy. A man would swim out with the files of those certificates and hand them over to the girl in the open rain as if they were all waterproof (possible, you know, lamination). An ex-army officer will rescue a pregnant woman and her little girl like a hero (somewhere you predict that when the boy tells his girlfriend that he left the army because he was scared of it), and all you know is that the rescue rope will be stuck for a while. The background score will make it sound like an earthquake, though. Every character in the film is fictionalised to give it a dramatic feel. It's up to you whether to believe it and enjoy it or be too critical about the content and judge it strictly according to your taste.There are a whole bunch of talented actors here, and I am not sure whom to praise or whom to begin with. To start with Tovino Thomas, this man is in the best phase of his career and is providing variety along with powerful performances. 2018 is not a film about one hero, but still, Tovino gets the maximum runtime and leaves you teary-eyed at the end. Kunchacko Boban has been underwhelming with his low screen presence, and the same goes with Vineeth Sreenivasan. Actually, it's the characters that are shortened, not the actors. Asif Ali, Aparna Balamurali, Lal, Sshivada, Kalaiyarasan, Narain, Aju Varghese, Hari Krishnan, Gauthami Nair, Siddiqui, Renji Panicker, Jaffar Idukki, Indrans, Janardhan, and Sudheesh do expectedly well in important supporting roles.2018 will give you a lot of moments of pain, including a few unexpected deaths (better say sacrifices). Even the dramatic liberty cannot take away that impact. There is a constant background score in the second half as the film moves to its most busy and engaging scenes, but suddenly you feel that pin-drop silence when something shocking appears in front of your eyes. From those screams for survival, top views of flooded villages, children's suffering, helpless noises, and heroic gestures of common people, 2018 packs a solid punch of an enthusiastic drama that has been missing for a while from the silver screen. The cinematography and sound design are fine. Jude Anthany Joseph's direction is flawed a bit, but sometimes too clever for sentimental cliches. For me, it's like half daily soap and half cinema. In any case, humanity cannot be mediocre; a film can be, but humanity always tops it. That's exactly what happens in 2018. As a whole, 2018 is an emotional human drama that deserves to be seen to learn a lot about life and social value. For two years, we have been asking people to keep the distance. Now it's time to come close and stand together for each other. 2018 celebrates that noble thought.