E - Movie Review

Story: Music teacher Malathy Menon (Gauthami), who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, is haunted by a mysterious incident from her past life. How she overcomes her condition with the help of her daughter Athira (Nithya Naresh) and her friends forms the storyline.

Review: The movie, scripted by Rohan Bajaj and Hari Kumar K, focuses on an Alzheimer’s patient Malathy, played by Gautami, and the strange happenings in her life. Director Kuku Surendran packs the film with a ghostly aura in the first half but allows it to lose steam in the latter half.

Karthik (Ashiq Ameer), an aspiring filmmaker, plans to make a documentary on Alzheimer's patients. He zeroes in on his old music teacher Malathy Menon, a widow who lives in Haripad, and is on the initial stage of the disease. Karthik, along with his friends, Jenni, Aaru, Alex and Hari, sets off to Haripad to document life of Malathy who stays there along with her daughter Athira. Things turn topsy-turvy when Karthik and his friends along with Athira sense unusual behaviour in Malathy, which is not exactly in the nature of her disease. The first half is dedicated to bring out the ‘horror element’ and develop the character of Malathy as a loving mother. Eventually, the bizarre nature of Malathy forces Karthik and gang to reach out to a paranormal expert, in a bid to save her from whatever spirit is possessing her.

Gauthami makes her comeback by portraying the dilemma of a loving mother who lives in dread of the day she may forget her daughter under the influence of her disease. These poignant moments are really the plus of the movie.

What isn’t is the way the film becomes a kind of jigsaw puzzle, making demands on the viewer’s part to join the missing pieces. It becomes a guessing game to unravel the plot by following the various happenings in Malathy’s life. Though the film has an ensemble cast of new faces, the director has not tried to give them impressive acting slots.

In fact, the title E is not made intelligible to the audience. Is it E for extra-terrestrial? Is it the first letter of the word, Eerie? Or does it refer to some earlier movie that revolved around a fly? The slapstick comedy often doesn’t fit in with the theme. The build-up of the trailer gives way to mild disappointment as the film meanders towards a predictable ending.

It could have been a proper horror film, by exploring the actress in Gauthami, with the supernatural aspect as the main thread but it is neither here nor there.