Visudha Mejo review: Lijomol Jose shines in this love story that squanders the promise of a breezy first half

2.5/5

Story: Mejo is the quintessential introvert, who has no friends and likes to keep to himself. His only friend is a boy much younger than him. This, however, changes when Jeena, who he has had a crush on since childhood, comes back into his life. While Jeena helps Mejo be a more sociable individual, he mistakes her efforts for something much bigger than friendship. How he comes to terms with his relationship with Jeena form the plot.

Review: In a scene in debutant Kiran Antony’s Visudha Mejo, its titular character Mejo (Dinoy Paulose) and female protagonist Jeena (Lijomol) are on top of a lighthouse. Jeena has just helped Mejo, an introvert, overcome his fear of heights and the latter begins to open up to her, explaining why he doesn’t have friends. A key reason is that he reveals his deepest insecurities and fears to them and they end up using it against him after they fall out. In this sequence, the audience would empathise with Mejo. But when whatever Mejo had predicted finally comes to pass between him and Jeena towards the end of the film, it’s debatable whether he actually deserved the empathy. Such is how the script of Visudha Mejo is shaped up that it squanders the promise of a breezy romcom in the second half, much like Dinoy’s previous script Pathrosinte Padappukal.

The film revolves around Mejo, a video editor, who falls in love with Jeena. In his defense, she is probably his only friend, apart from Ambrose, a hip teenager (Mathew Thomas), and has liked him despite idiosyncrasies. However, Mejo soon mistakes what she has for him as love and then has to go through the various stages of heartbreak. This is also where the movie falters as it takes the viewers through the run-of-the-mill path that includes consistent calls for attention and stalking. And what makes it even more irritating is that Mejo’s character despite the travel feels stuck, as a man-child refusing to let go or understand.

While Mejo’s innocence makes for some good scenes at first, once the character faces a conflict, his reactions are wayward and derails the movie’s pace. Mathew Thomas as Ambrose is the comic relief in the film and after a point, even his sequences get tiring as they seem redundant; the audiences have already watched these in Thanneer Mathan Dinangal and Pathrosinte Padappukal albeit with Naslen.

Lijomol Jose as Jeena is one of the positives of the film, ably carrying off her character and almost anchoring the film. Justin Varghese’s music is another highlight. Cinematographer Jomon T John, who is also the film’s producer, has kept the frames organic and combined with Justin’s score, the first half feels like a cool breeze.

Verdict: Visudha Mejo also serves as a companion piece to Pathrosinte Padappukal, in the sense that it gets off to a promising start but ends up all over the place in the latter half. The lack of chemistry between its lead characters also contribute to making this film a less engaging affair.