{"id":62,"date":"2021-05-26T11:36:53","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T15:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/?p=62"},"modified":"2021-05-26T11:36:55","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T15:36:55","slug":"c-u-soon-dir-mahesh-narayanan-2020-malayalam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/2021\/05\/26\/c-u-soon-dir-mahesh-narayanan-2020-malayalam\/","title":{"rendered":"C U Soon (dir. Mahesh Narayanan, 2020, Malayalam)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on August 31, 2020.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jimmy (Roshan Mathew) meets Anu (Darshana Rajendran) via an online dating app \u2013 in fact, all of their relationship is conducted on-line, mainly through Google Hangouts.  Anu seems to be careful about what she shares \u2013 most of the photos she shows Jimmy are older, though she occasionally sends a current photo of herself, or of her guitar, or books on a shelf.  Video chats get added to the mix, though very often Anu stays only briefly on a call, saying she can\u2019t talk while her father is around.  Jimmy seems more forthcoming, revealing he\u2019s recently broken up with someone, that he drinks, answering a video call while he\u2019s at work, or sharing videos of himself and his co-workers.  Anu finally sends a video of herself playing the guitar, and Jimmy tries calling her.  And calling her.  And calling her.  When she finally picks up, she reminds him that he shouldn\u2019t call her without warning her first, as it\u2019s hard for her to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one such call, Jimmy surprises Anu by suddenly inviting his mother (and cousin, Neethu) onto the call, telling them he loves her, and asking Anu to marry him.  Anu looks distressed, and they immediately switch to chat \u2013 she asks if it\u2019s for real \u2013 and he says it is, because he wouldn\u2019t have involved his mother if he weren\u2019t serious about her.  Jimmy\u2019s next move is to contact his cousin, Kevin Thomas (Fahadh Faasil). In the middle of a call meeting, he answers a text from Jimmy, who sends him a photo of Anu, telling him the news that he wants to marry her.  This is followed by a call from Jimmy\u2019s mother \u2013 who is actually perturbed about Jimmy\u2019s asking Anu to marry him on video chat, especially since they haven\u2019t even met in real life.  Jimmy\u2019s mother wants Kevin to find out more information about the girl, but Kevin doesn\u2019t want to hack into someone else\u2019s private data.  Jimmy\u2019s mother is unrelenting, asking Kevin to search social media to find out Anu\u2019s family background.  Angry, Kevin calls Jimmy, who wants him to at least find out a little bit of information \u2013 Kevin tells him to just find her current call history, but Jimmy drops the information that Anu doesn\u2019t have a SIM card, because of some family issue.  Kevin finds that surprising \u2013 she has Facebook, a phone, and access to the internet, but she has no SIM card?  Anu seems to be tied to her Wi-Fi, and this, on top of Anu\u2019s somewhat secretive nature (she is rarely seen anywhere except under the covers, or in a bedroom), is, perhaps, a sign that there is more to Anu than meets the eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"CU_Soon_StillFF\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When Anu calls Jimmy one evening, distraught and looking like she\u2019s been beaten, he goes to finally meet her, and brings her to stay with him \u2013 a big no-no in the United Arab Emirates, where it is not permitted for unmarried couples to live together.  But Jimmy wants to help Anu, and he\u2019s persisting in the idea of marrying her.  Despite begging him not to, Jimmy goes to meet with Anu\u2019s  father, ask him why he hurt his daughter, and tell him they are going to get married.  He gives Anu\u2019s father her new phone number (for a phone Jimmy has bought for her), and he feels everything is going to be all right \u2013 until he gets what he believes to be a suicide video message from Anu, and arrives home to find she has taken her belongings and has disappeared. In no time, Jimmy is visited by the police, and then taken to the police station. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s when Kevin decides that he needs to start investigating Anu\u2019s disappearance that the film really takes off \u2013 though I\u2019ll admit that while I suspected what was going on with Anu, at least in part, it was interesting to see Kevin use his skills to follow the trail and get to the bottom of the mystery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

C U Soon is an example of something I\u2019ve admired a lot during this pandemic \u2013 the capacity of individuals to pivot from the usual ways of doing things (that don\u2019t work when there\u2019s a lock-down), to finding creative ways of working that allow them to work despite all the constraints.  I was a little overwhelmed by all the split screens as characters made phone calls, opened chat, and lived lives on camera \u2013 but I also know that I\u2019m not part of a generation for which all of that \u2013 in which so many aspects of their lives \u2013 are spent on-line in many ways, shapes, forms, and apps.  That the film works without completely overwhelming a techno-dweeb such as myself is a feat in and of itself.  That said, there were times that I felt there were small inconsistencies in the film \u2013 some of which were resolved, but some of which were left hanging, and I couldn\u2019t help but wonder if something got lost in the editing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was, frankly, also turned off by Jimmy\u2019s reaction when he finally learns Anu\u2019s story \u2013 I won\u2019t say much so as not to spoil the plot, but Jimmy\u2019s first thought is to blame a woman he claims he loves without hearing the whole story of what happened to her, and I found that completely unfair and somewhat misogynistic.  Given the film\u2019s ultimate theme, it\u2019s also incredibly sad.  It falls upon Kevin to care for a woman he\u2019s only known through tracing her on-line presence to resolve things.  At least he had the conscience to be moved by Anu\u2019s story, and to cry for her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on August 31, 2020. Jimmy (Roshan Mathew) meets Anu (Darshana Rajendran) via an online dating app \u2013 in fact, all of their relationship is conducted on-line, mainly through Google Hangouts.  Anu seems to be careful about what she shares \u2013 most of the…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingC U Soon (dir. Mahesh Narayanan, 2020, Malayalam)<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[79,76,78,63,80,77],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-darshana-rajendran","tag-fahadh-faasil","tag-mahesh-narayanan","tag-malayalam-cinema","tag-roshan-mathew","tag-tags-cu-soon","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}