Director Jayaraj's 'Naayika' is an attempt on a retro journey, trying to cash on the nostalgic memories of the sixties. With all those vintage songs and sequences resembling the prominent figures of the time, the movie but fails to impress due to a muddled script and shoddy production values.
The movie is all about the life of a yesteryear heroine, who suddenly disappeared from showbiz some decades ago, but still lives the life of a star. The movie follows the attempts of Aleena (Mamtha Mohandas), the grand daughter of noted director Job, to film the life of a former heart throb Gracy (Sharada). As per her contemporaries, Gracy had an affair with the then superstar Anand (Jayaram) and the couple had plans to adopt a child artiste named Vani. Though her former aides, the dance master Rangannan and makeup women (Jagathy and K P A C Lalitha) still give her an air of a busy artiste, Aleena somehow manages the mentally challenged Gracy to reveal her life and associated mysteries.
'Naayika' appears as a outright confused flick, which hardly try to remain focussed on the travels of a yesteryear heroine, but also drags in a murder mystery into it .The script by Deedi Damodharan seems half baked with many clueless characters who refuse to blend together for a solid platform of a remarkable product. The director in Jayaraj seems to have forgotten his immense experiences and following with his recent down trail, is not able to do anything exceptional. The former half takes much awful time to buildup the events while the later half has pretty few to impress.
The movie takes unclear stances on many personalities and studios of the Mollywood history, dishonoring them with the closer names like Greenland studio, Stephen muthalali and his confidant Chakrapani, to `M C Daniel award', without any purpose and relevance. Though the name of Prem Nazir is mentioned all over, it holds no purpose for the central star to mimic his mannerisms all through. The obligatory bail of 'fictious characters' and 'no resemblances' is there as the first card of the movie ,but the film very well give you the strong references of Sathyan master and his terminal illness, where he used to nose bleed in the shooting intervals and also the events such as Vijayshree's suicide following her wardrobe malfunction in 'Ponnapuram Kotta'. The infamous war of the two major Studios of the times is brought into the picture as well, and while one Studio has been named 'Greenland', its opponent is named 'Vijaya'.
`Urvashi' Sharada, who had some author backed roles in her early films has no such luck here, though she has tried her level best to infuse some life into the film. Jayaram has almost succeeded in his brief role, imitating the actor that he had done well in his mimicry stages. Padmapriya excels as the young Gracy and is the soul of the film while Siddique takes up as peculiar diction and dressing style in a consistent manner to impress. Sarayu is also apt in her short role.
Sinu Murukkumpuzha's visuals are pretty average though M K Arjunan's songs succeed in bringing the nostalgic mood to the film. His classic `Kasthoori manakkunnallo katte.' has been included in the film, with Jayaram imitating Prem Nazir.
All in all, 'Naayika' qualify for just an average watch. At the Box Office, the movie may find it difficult to pick in the audiences, who has already started gluing in to the other Jayaram film on theatres.
Rating: 4.5/10
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