Magic Mushrooms movie review and rating: Although it may seem otherwise, it is not easy to make a light-hearted film that is simply fun, not too serious and that at times can make us shed a tear or two. It’s not that these movies want you to turn off your brain, but they’re better when you watch them with your heart, because that’s what they’re trying to speak to. They may not be extremely satisfying, but they are a relaxing experience and offer a silly, fast and fun experience. Director Nadirshah’s Magic Mushrooms is, in a sense, a popcorn movie that smartly avoids straying from its familiar milieu.
Ever since he was rescued from a well next to his house as a child by a large group of people, Ayon (Vishnu Unnikrishnan) has feared crowds. Whenever he finds himself in the midst of one, fear completely takes over his consciousness; freezes, falls unconscious, or even literally pees his pants. Although he initially thought he had superpowers, little Ayón slowly realized that he is too ordinary. Even as an adult, Ayón never manages to build an identity in his small town of Idukki, and everyone considers him worthless, a situation exacerbated by his introverted nature. Meanwhile, his world collapses when his childhood friend Jewel (Meenakshi Dinesh), with whom he had an undisclosed crush, gets married. Worse yet, he’s a trouble magnet who can’t seem to do anything right. However, Ayon’s life takes a turn when she meets Janaki (Akshaya Udayakumar). Much more introverted than Ayón, she is a person of habits and extremely reticent, who prefers to live in her own world. However, at some point, Ayón and Janaki’s eyes and hearts meet, as if they had realized that only they can understand each other’s silences and insecurities.
One of the advantages of Magic Mushrooms is that its central characters are completely unadorned. It’s almost impossible to find characters like this in mainstream cinema, which rarely highlights those who never become the core of any room they enter. Ayón and Janaki are the type of people who rarely come to the foreground and are often relegated to the background, forced to exist faceless in the midst of large crowds, without the camera landing on them, not even accidentally, not even for a second. The film predominantly focuses on the sheer charm of two people finding comfort and solace in each other. Two people, who are often largely misunderstood, chosen last in any scenario, overlooked and ridiculed for not meeting the standards of emotional intelligence and behavioral patterns demanded by society, nest in each other and become each other’s home.
Whenever Ayon and Janaki are together, Akash Dev’s writing is as sweet as can be, giving their relationship a sense of elegance without even allowing narrow-minded viewers to make tasteless assumptions about their character traits. This is particularly true in the case of Janaki.
At the same time, although she is reserved, she does not hold back when her mother confronts her about her interfaith relationship with Ayón, and she admits it without fear. When she wants to feel loved, she doesn’t care where they are and bluntly asks Ayón for a kiss, which helps assure him that she genuinely loves him too. When they are together in her room one night, unbeknownst to her family, Ayon finally opens up about her childhood traumas, underscoring how she doesn’t hesitate to be vulnerable with Janaki. Even better, she offers him no advice or solutions; instead, she simply listens, sitting as close to him as possible. It’s in these small, heartwarming moments where Akash’s script shines the brightest, almost like offering a big hug to those who rarely receive it.
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Unfortunately, it is only in these moments that Magic Mushrooms impresses, as the writing and execution elsewhere, particularly the scenes featuring Ayon and her friends, such as Paappi (Abin Bino) and Pookkala (Shameer Khan), are rather bland. Although Nadirshah and Akash try to tell some jokes and one-liners, even using fantasy to do so at times, their efforts rarely yield fruitful results. Worse still, like other Nadirshah directorials, Magic Mushrooms also contains quite a lot of useless dialogues that give the impression that the makers introduced them simply to show off their knowledge of new generation lifestyles and terms like Bumble, ChatGPT, depression and Santhivila Dinesh.azhuka cherukkan” comment. The film also features several overly poetic dialogues that sound as if they were designed to be posted on social media.
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Although Ayón’s father, José (Jaffar Idukki), and Janaki’s father, Divakaran (Bobby Kurian), appear on screen a little too often, they end up being repeat versions of the characters the two actors have been playing for the longest time. Meanwhile, characters like Paappi, Pookkala and Kuttappan (Harisree Ashokan) are reduced to delivering “funny” dialogues, leaving them purposeless. While Vishnu Unnikrishnan’s performance is good, it might be time for him and the filmmakers to realize that he is no longer convincing in young adult roles, given that it has been 10 years since Kattappanayile Hrithik Roshan.
One of Magic Mushrooms’ main shortcomings is Nadirshah’s direction and his frequent attempts to resort to humor at strange and unwanted moments, further complicated by his inability to ensure subtle performances. If someone else had directed Akash’s script, the film could have turned out better. Furthermore, Nadirshah should not consider composing music for his films, as his songs often seem to not match the images. While its parody tracks are fun to listen to as singles, they only detract from the overall movie experience, and Magic Mushrooms’ extremely disappointing music serves as a testament to that.
Cast of the movie Magic Mushrooms: Vishnu Unnikrishnan, Akshaya, Abin Bino, Meenakshi Dinesh
Director of the movie Magic Mushrooms: Nadirshah
Magic Mushrooms movie rating: 2 stars