Pyali movie review: Babita, Rinn’s simple, sweet children's film about two siblings takes its time to soar

3/5

Story: Two siblings – Ziah and Pyali – are left to look after themselves in the slums of Kochi after their parents’ passing. Ziah, however, doesn’t make Pyali feel like an orphan, ensuring that she lives like a princess in the little world that he builds for the duo through his daily-wage work that hardly fetches enough to eke out a living. Even as the ugly world rears its head through contractors looking to exploit them or even child protection personnel set out to separate them, the two stick together to fend off the challenges and give each other wings.

Review: In a moving sequence in debutant director Babita and Rinn’s Pyali, Sreenivasan’s character, who chided 14-year-old Ziah (George Jacob) for touching his daughter’s painting the previous day as he felt his hands were dirty, kisses the boy’s palms after he realises the artist in him. That he does this without uttering a word of apology and beams with a mix of pride and regret, is shown through the faces of Ziah and his five-year-old sister Pyali (Barbiee Sharma). Throughout the movie, its directors bank on the positives that force Ziah to keep on striving for his sister even as the ugly world rears in heads and throws challenges one after the other for the duo to navigate.

The movie revolves around the two Kashmiri siblings, who live in the slums of Kochi, eking out a living. The makers don’t complicate the film, with the issues that such children face in the cities – from exploitation through child labour, sexual harassment or the rehabilitation of these kids through the system. We do get a few glimpses of these through the characters of Mammukkoya, Aadukalam Muragadoss, Appani Sarath and Sujith Sankar, but the movie focuses on the positive side of their lives. Even the sequence where the children’s background is questioned – but only barely – feels a bit unbelievable. While this does take away from the harsh realities and offer a disconnect for the viewers, it also helps in the fantasy world that Ziah is trying to build for his sister.

In that regard, the film is also paced accordingly. It’s on the slower side because it mostly involves the children and doesn’t have space for the mad rush of the adult world. However, you would wish the film had a few more moving moments. It felt a bit too simplistic to mirror the soul of the movie. Pyali is also one of those feel-good films where the production design and art lends to the overall experience. Both Santosh Raman and Sunil Kumaran deserve a lot of credit for making Pyali’s world as magical as possible.

It’s also not a conventional children’s film, with the actor shuffling between Hindi and Malayalam, and even Prashanth Pillai composing songs in Hindi as well as English. Both the lead actors – George and Barbiee – perform their roles well, and are aptly cast. Pyali’s Malayalam makes for some cute moments in the movie, which also has a guest appearance by Unni Mukundan in a character who sometimes goes off on a monologue in Hindi and Urdu while conversing with Ziah. But all of this adds to the story that is told as a fairytale for children.

Verdict: Pyali is a simple children’s film that focuses on the bond between an elder brother and his sister, whom he looks after amid all the challenges. Though the children's film is on the slower side, the good intent of the makers as well as some delightful performances add colour to this small film with a large heart.