The Kerala Story Review - Neither Allah Nor Any God Can Tolerate This Brainless Tale

Sudipto Sen attempts to bring a hard-hitting and controversial story of Kerala girls joining ISIS in The Kerala Story, starring Adah Sharma, Yogita Bihani, Sonia Balani, and Siddhi Idnani. The film has sparked enough controversy for being a false presentation of events that either didn't really happen or don't have enough evidence to prove their authenticity. I am not going into propaganda and communism's arguments or its reliability as an authentic story, but seriously, how can one even pass this film in today's era? CBFC, who has a bad history of restricting so much harmless content earlier, did pass this film without any cuts/beeps in so many hate speeches and direct attacks on God? All my life, I have been told that Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India. But after watching The Kerala Story (if believed to be true for those 2 hours), I believe that they have the most illiterate people of any state in India. If you can be fooled or brainwashed so easily, then what's the use of being literate? Especially when your story is centred on nursing girls, which is quite a literate and high-IQ profession. However, the girls here were too immature and brainless. As the cop says, "How can we interfere with the decisions of two adults?" Hell yes, right. The girls were adults with zero IQ, so they got what they deserved. Why the hell do we need to feel sorry for them? The Kerala Story may have a hundred other issues, but the base of emotional and sympathetic connect with the girls destroys the entire structure even before the tower is built.The Kerala Story is about three girls, Shalini Unnikrishnan (Adah Sharma), Nimah (Yogita Bihani), and Geetanjali (Siddhi Idnani), who live together in a hostel at a nursing college. There is a fourth girl, a Muslim one, Asifa (Sonia Balani), who is working for ISIS. All Asifa has to do is befriend Hindu girls, allure them to convert to Islam, and eventually send them to Afghanistan for terrorist activities. Our low-IQ girls are easily fooled by her and fall in love with three Muslim guys and are subsequently forced to convert to Islam, followed by terrible consequences. As we know, someone has to die, someone has to be caught by cops, and someone has to be saved; The Kerala Story simply divides three girls into three typical categories to lead to a useless conclusion to the boredom of 130 minutes.The Kerala Story is full of hate speeches, and I wonder how CBFC members passed it without any cuts or beeps. "Jesus was crucified; your God couldn't save him. Do you think he will save you? Only Allah protects". "What kind of God is Krishna? He does Rasleela with every girl?" "What kind of God is Ram, who couldn't save his own wife alone and needed Sena?" "What kind of God Shiva is who couldn't save his own wife from being Sati?" These three are perfect dialogues for a Muslim girl who knows more about Hindu Gods and Jesus than her own Allah. But our Hindu girls are lured by her talk so easily that it is as if the Muslim girl has travelled to Jannat and Hell both and then returned to earth to teach them about Allah and Islam. Funnily enough, not a single girl out of three ever hits back at her hate speeches or ever questions Allah's existence. As one of them says, "You just have to believe and pray, and God will take care of you." They don't sense any danger and change their lifestyle after converting to Islam. Physical relationships, pregnancy, forced marriage, fake passports, fake documents, and travel outside India—all these things are not weird for our three well-educated girls. A few men molest them in the public area, and there is no police complaint. A girl reveals to a cop that she has been raped by 18–20 people in an unconscious state, yet the cop asks for proof. Laugh at it if you find it hilarious that 30,000 girls have been shifted outside India by conversion, but neither the IB nor any agency has any clue about it. In other films, the same agencies will find ISIS plans even before they can figure out an escape. Here, you literally have no cops, no CBI, no IB, or any other agencies in Kerala despite such a big global agenda, and somehow politicians, Pakistan, America, and Bangladesh, who are always looking for a chance, simply do not exist. This film has also introduced me to some "Brainwashing Pills," which work faster than Eno, i.e., 5 seconds. You take the pill outside the door, and by the time you enter the room, the pill has done its job. These are called "Nashe Ki Goliya" (drugs) by a philosopher in the film, but a girl can get over drugs without any rehabilitation.Speaking of performances, Adah Sharma looks cute as a Kerala girl, but the transformation isn't convincing—especially her accent. Why would she suddenly speak half of her statement in Hindi in front of a foreign officer? That too is broken Hindi. Yogita Bihani plays a Catholic girl with no belief in God or anything (at least that's what her character suggests), but the way she has been transformed into a rebel is some relief. But again, the accent problem. Sonia Balani as Asifa is impressive, though. It's weird that the most hateful character in the film stands tall against everyone. The accent issue continues with Siddhi Idnani, but somehow, being the most nasty, vulgar, and wild girl, she sums things up quite well with her character graph. The supporting cast, including all the male actors, is surprisingly good. The Kerala Story misfires in many fields. The editing is below par, as you feel bored with a hard-hitting and sensitive topic like this. The mother would react mildly to seeing her daughter wearing Hijab and converting to Islam. She will do nothing about her behaviour, her education, or her love affair, but instead she will go on to plead to take her home. In the next scene, she would learn about her daughter's pregnancy but take no action. She will even go to meet her and see her off at the airport, but there are still no attempts to stop her. The same mother will just cry when her daughter tells her that she has been captured by agencies. You might have expected her to do the least, something like grab her identity proofs and go to the police or embassy. None of it, but just cry. STOP this boring daily-soap under the fake pretence of hard-hitting drama, I said to myself. Sudipto Sen fails to understand the ethics of filmmaking and what tides it can send to the shore. A cinema should either be fictional or true to reality; in any case, it will be judged under one carpet. Changing people's simple thinking about humanity and spreading hate speeches are not the jobs of a film. I am saying it again: it's not about the hate templates of the Muslim girl or the brutal things ISIS members do; it's about these three girls and their parents not doing anything against it. So many lessons about Gods and their miracles from childhood cannot be erased by a couple of questions and mythical dangers spread by someone. The Kerala Story team changed 32000 women to 3 girls in the YouTube description, and now in the film, they again converted 3 into 32000. A mass bashing is needed here, and I have done my part.