User Reviews

There's a tiny, surreal sequence involving a green mermaid right at the start in Moothon (The Elder One) which made me jump a little. And I had no idea I would do that a couple more times as this raunchy crime drama played out in front of me giving me multiple layers and themes to work with. Geethu Mohandas's second feature film is a tough nut to crack (read review) and every time you will see it, you are going to describe it in a different way. That the story of a young street-un-smart boy literally swims across the ocean from Lakdhadsweep to Mumbai in search of his elder brother and gets entangled in the rustic dirt of the millennium city's red light area of Kamathipura pays an ode to the lives of the gangland and its adjacent brothels and its dwellers is very clear. But Mohandas does not stop at one theme, she flipflops between them even as she explores cross-dressing, gender and identity, and the validity of fate. She also does not let you indulge in any one sequence for more than a few seconds as the scattered plot goes back and forth with its timelines showing the characters in both their best and the worst. The twists, or the realities that I would like to call in film's context, come out of nowhere and are going to make you jump a little too for when you realize its symbolism and how all of that has derived from real life stories a smacked gob is going to take some time to come back to its normal position. There's a high degree of realism in Mohandas's direction whether it is Nivin Pauly's transformation from the chocolate boy Georgie-like charm to this corroded personality that now rules the chawls of a fireless inferno while being on smack all the time or it is the raw Hindi dialogues filled with just enough expletives to show you the deal. The reality meter always keeps ticking. I am finally starting to see Pauly extend his range and Moothon is a step in the right direction for him, but I'm not too sure about the film's commercial run for the themes actually spectrum from sexuality to forbidden relationships to the bond of families. The characters are refined and more so are the actors who play them. Shashank Arora and Sobhita Dhulipala somehow tie with Pauly in the performance department even with their extremely smaller characters, which together with that by Dileesh Pothan and Roshan Mathew (who plays a dumb character flawlessly) just hits a high note. Moothon mostly works because of the nontepid writing and brilliant performances by its cast, and even if I leave out the ambiguities involved up in the air it is still going to be a visual treat. The score by Sagar Desai is haunting and so are the shots Rajeev Ravi concocts for you to see and be mesmerized by. There are flying fish, Pauly performing the Islamic practice of tatbir (or self-infliction using knives), bits of tasty surrealism, and one of the best depictions of the Mumbai crime scene. Moothon rules. It reveals. TN.

(Watched and reviewed at its India premiere at the 21st MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)

Great acting and direction. Very dark but excellent making. Intense scenes and great camera work. Best of malayalam industry.

Very dark but a great watch it kept me on the edge of my seat really intense story

After watching Moothon, I thought about every scenes of the movie from start to end. The scenes in Moothon was the only thing in my mind for a long time. That is the kind of impact Moothon had in me and the it's a win for the whole crew. To be honest, there's nothing like Moothon in Malayalam cinema till this date and I don't think there will be a film like this in near future. Yes, Jallikattu was an exceptional movie and its hard to pick which was better but you'll know how both are different after watching this. Geethu Mohandas tackles all social toboos and just went on with her gut, hats off to that. Speaking of performances, Nivin Pauly gave us a performance for ages. This is not the Nivin Pauly you have seen before. This is simply his best performance. All the other supporting cast were brilliant and I'm not giving individual references as all were equally remarkable. Rajeev Ravi's cinematography was another level and he's simply one of the best in India. The music, editing also truly remakable. There's so much to talk about Moothon. Again, this movie is not for everyone and I guess many people will dislike it because the story is completely new to the Malayalam audiences. I'm a true cinema lover and I liked this movie very much because its pure art.

Moothon sets an new genre to Malayalam cinema.it tells a story as deep as dark in his way it self. It is interesting even it is an drama by plot. You can try this for a new experimental Malayalam movie. By performance Nivinpauly and Mathew carried this film on their shoulder. Music and cinematography are remarkable.

No one can imagine why should nivin would do like this role.... Geethu mohandas where correct... everyone will have a discouragement to do this film... Nivin has incresed his weight for this film... for the completeness of the character... But only a few people know about this film... Moothon is not a commercial movie... When it hits theatres on november 8 in kerala then, we can know the response of the people... But if you are a movie lover then, you will definitely watch and love this... people toranto film festival including me exitited with nivin's performance as akbar bhai.... it will be a turning point in his life

A teen boy idolizes his older brother, who was a star in a Moslem ritual dance. However, his brother has left mysteriously for Bombay, and, chafing under his guardian, steals a boat and escapes the island, with only a phone number to make contact.

Getting into Bombay, he falls into a society that is darker than depicted in Lion, There is the orphanage with child abuse, human traffickers, prostitutes, and eunuchs. Along the way, themes of homosexuality, gender identity and gender expression are also explored.

Much as I wanted to like the film, I have reservations. Like Lion, the boy does not speak the language of the city he ends up in, and subtitling loses that distinction. There is a long flashback sequence explaining why the elder brother left home, but not why he did not choose a better path for his exit. Finally, the coincidences that are needed to make the film work are unbelievable.

Though the film tells the story in Malayalam and Hindi, this is an International movie. The direction, Acting, Screen play and cinematography deserves to be seen by International audience to understand that Indian Cinema is not cliched Bollywood but beyond that. Please watch and appreciate good movies.

Moothon (The Elder One) serves its purpose in the Indian society and beyond like no other. 10 minutes into this movie you start worrying about this little kid, and two hours later you realize it hasn't let up one bit in intensity. This is a complete nightmare, a tough chore to put into words. It's one of the bets films of the year along with Peranbu, 2019 is really is shaping up to be the great for cine-goers. But on the other hand, Indian cinema produced some good titles coming from experimental filmmakers like Prantik Basu, Aditya Vikram Sengupta, Amit Dutta, Achal Mishra, Ronny Sen, Arun Karthick and many more with their own style and ethos. While Malayalam cinema has been flourishing with good experiments and filmmakers taking up many sensitive issues like LGBTQIA, feminism, radical or leftist themes etc. Ligy J. Pullappally's Sancharram to mediocre films like My Life Partner (2014), Jayan K. Cherian's mediocre Ka Bodyscapes (2016). With mainstream actors like Jayasurya doing Njan Marykutty (2018), Prithviraj Sukumaran in Mumbai Police (2013) and Manju Warrier's recent Aami (2018), a really bad film, should've never been made. I loved Don Palathara's Shavam (2015) and Lijo Jose Pellissery's Ee. Ma. Yau. For the record, Jis Joy's Bicycle Thieves (2013), Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's Sexy Durga is one the worst films i saw recently, it rivals with Vipin Vijay's Chitrasutram, a disaster with loads of pretentious in every frame. I really wish they take these cockroach films, and dispose it into the nearest cesspool. Regardless, the graph of Malayalam cinema has it's share of everything bad to mediocre and the good ones.

Here we have, Geethu Mohandas directing Nivin Pauly who falls for a speech-impaired gay. The film opens with a beautiful shot, establishing the mood and the setting, it did come across as a surprise after it suddenly changes its tone. We have a gender-nonconforming kid who leaves home in search of his elder brother with life, childhood & innocence at stake. From then on, the film travels to the slums of Bombay with the kid and we meet Akbar (Nivin Pauly) whose intro is treated with the template of a mass superstar but with a melancholic score. He is a meth addict and has no humanity left in him but it slumbers somewhere deep inside in the past. He even tell the kid to get into a fight and forces him to slaughter a lamb. Then the big reveal and what follows is loss of humanity, love, horror, siblinghood in its rawest without melodrama as the camera exposes horrors in claustrophobic slums of Bombay populated by demented low lives. We get a flashback of Akbar's past and his homosexual relationship in the second half. Director Geethu takes advantage of the location that resonates with the tone and sensitively handles this topic so intelligently. Even the climax, the most riveting sequence being the last few moments of Akbar (Nivin Pauly) who is broken and deliverance is nowhere in sight with a bittersweet last shot that will haunt you, terrify you but will make you smile. Excellent job, Geetu Mohandas, and every single actor and technician who contributed to this deserves all the accolades and awards. There's a real humanitarian cause behind this project, depicting scenes with a raw matter-of-factness. I can tell a lot more about 'Moothon', but why? Go see this and decide it.

This film really deserves its due credits. The narrative itself is so much touchy that the dark and raw essence of the emotion is still intact in it. A beautiful love story taking such a dark turn. The first thing which is to be appreciated is the performances. I would say each and everyone were great but Nivin Pauly took his dark character seriously to the next level. Playing a guy who hides his pain in the first part and then as a drug addict in the second one. Its unbelievable that it is the same guy I witnessed as a tamed personality in Bangalore Days. Roshan Mathew too, in a short screen time without uttering a single dialogue beautifully potrayed a character through his spellbound expressions and his eyes. The camera work too is phenomenal. The panning of the camera for recording the rain sequence and atlast the distorted camera work during the outburst of the character was something brilliantly done. Moreover, the messaging of the film is very much touchy and surely one of a kind. I will surely recommend this movie. Do give it a watch. Its something which probably you have never witnessed with such an ease.

Just saw it a few days ago at TIFF. It took a while to get immersed in the rush of various themes because of very chopy cuts and sequence switches. Then it was ok for a while, still choppy and rushed but almost harking back to cinema verite. And it felt salvageable, the themes inspiring and tough to handle when inserted into Mumbai slums or seemingly idyllic, but conservative island setting. Ultimately though, two hours later, my distaste of editing prevented me from fully connecting with the film. My female partners didn't enjoy the film at all, finding it confusing and too real in its brutality while unrealistic from a storyline perspective. The Q&A was great and shed a bit of light on what apparently was the prevailing theme of search, and added a lot of colour to many other scenes. Ultimately, I hope the director continues to make films as the narrative was primising and her voice, unique, but it'd be great if she found a better editor.

Excellent movie, great cinematography. Raw performance by Nivin Pauly and Mathew. This movie is worth IMDB 9 rating.

No words to say stunned by nivin pauly bold attempt by the team too

Geetu Mohandas(Director) just pulled out an outstanding performance on her carrer. Nivin Pauly have done his job in very much of its perfection. Great camera works,edits and background music. PROUD MOMENT FOR MOLLYWOOD

No explicit visually. Strong refference to Gay, and Prostituted. Some parts reminds of the movie ' Beyond the clouds' . Anyways everyone can give it a try.

And I loved it despite the very obvious plot holes. I didn't remind myself about the synopsis of the film before watching and I hadn't realised that Mulla was transgender. Sanjana Dipu played her part perfectly.

There was a sense of predestination in the film. It was as if we knew what the fate of Mulla would be. As soon as Akbar determined he would take care of her, we know that his fate would be bad.

What we didn't know was how the fate of Ameer would turn out after the film moved unobtrusively into a far more lyrical past. The handling of the gay affair was done sensitively and pushed the limits as far as possible so that it would not get the film banned in the country.

I was amazed that the same actor played both young Akbar and the older version. I'm sure he must have gone on a high carbohydrate diet to plump up, but even so, his face was so expressively different from the good-looking youth he was during his clandestine affair to the dissipated junkie he had become after the departure of Ameer.

The bit part players were all good, especially the kids. I really liked the insight into the slums and criminal underground of Bombay.

The film was two hours long and didn't have the usual dances and songs; these would have marred the narrative. For a Western audience, this would be about right as it was for me. For a local showing, people might wonder why it was so short.

I'm glad I saw this.

Just finished watching Moothon. I was waiting to watch this movie for months. Finally watched it today. One of the best and unexpected movie in Malayalam cinema. Still I can't believe my eyes. Must watch movie if you like to see a movie with real emotions. Nivin & child artist nailed it 😍

So its a story that meanders from one edge to another yet can't seem to find its true soul. I was confused if it was a quest for lost family ties or a search for meaning of one's own existence or just a picturisation of all that goes on in deep dungeons of slums of Mumbai. From sleepy shores of Lakshadweep to filth ridden streets of kamathipura the environs are nicely shot and lend believability to the plot. But in between its difficult to understand the premise that director wants to focus on. Nivin Pauly is superb and so is Shashank who supersedes Pauly at times. Rest of the cast is also good. It keeps you interested almost till the end as you root for the kid to find the "Elder" but eventually it does become predictable as to what would be the end of it all. Is it Missable.. Possibly unless you want to rave on the acting skills of the protagonist and the side kick!! 5 Stars are for them!!

Ok so first of all I don't think the child is transgender. Rather she loves to dress up as a boy because of her love towards her brother who she has no memory of. Great direction. Splendid acting by Nivin. And excellent cinematography.

Iam still in awe about the story, the actors, the background music-everything. I was hooked from the beginning, immersing into the beautiful island in Kerala and then moving with the kid into the noisy, crowded red district area of Mumbai. Its one of the best movies ive ever seen! I dont want to give any Information away about the plot, because everyone should see for himself, but i can say that the story is innovative and brave , dealing with a sensitive and important topic in such a sensible and touching way. Iam falling in love with Malayalam movies again and again. They have such a different take on making movies, way ahead of all other industries in India and i would even say way ahead of other Film makers from outside of india. They are capable of telling stories in a simple, but emotional manner, enabling the viewer to connect with the characters on a deeper level- like here in Moothon. Maybe thats the reason Iam still soo touched by the film . A must watch!!

Naveen pauly took the character and played really great, one of his best acting performance.