Aadujeevitham aka The Goat Life Movie Review: A Committed Prithviraj Sukumaran Invokes Mix of Nausea and Awe in Blessy's Gruelling Survival Drama (LatestLY Exclusive)

Aadujeevitham Movie Review: Blessy's new film Aadujeevitham  (English title: The Goat Life) begins with a scene where individual sand-grains are seen rising up in the air before we see them form a sand-storm in the desert. Later in the film, a sequence of water flowing through the desert sand is smoothly cut to a lush river flowing across a village. As a visual experience, Aadujeevitham is something of an incredible novelty when it comes to Malayalam Cinema, or even Indian cinema for that matter. With AR Rahman's eclectic BG score and an astoundingly committed performance from leading man Prithviraj Sukumaran to boot, Aadujeevitham is an onscreen experience that is not easy to forget, though it is not something you may want to revisit. Aadujeevitham aka The Goat Life Advance Booking: Prithviraj Sukumaran-Starrer Earns More Than Rs 8.9 Crore Worldwide – Reports.

Based on a Malayalam novel of the same name written by Benyamin, which itself is inspired by a real-life incident, Aadujeevitham is about Najib (Prithviraj Sukumaran), who goes to the Gulf in search of employment with Hakeem (KR Gokul) another young man from his village. In the novel, the country they go to is Saudi Arabia, but the film tries its best to avoid mentioning the name. At the airport, the two men are forcibly accosted and taken away by an Arab whom they call Khaleef (Talib Al Balushi), who drives them in the middle of the desert to make them work as unpaid labourers.

Watch the Trailer of Aadujeevitham aka The Goat Life:

Najib and Hakeem are separated, and Najib is dropped at a goat farm, where he is mistreated by his owners and the terrible living conditions. He doesn't know their language, nor can he speak or understand any other language except his own. Najib tries to escape but finds no way to go in the vast expanses of the desert. Soon, taking to tending the cattle there, Najib loses track of time and also his own appearance until one day, when he finds a faint glimmer of hope to escape, and he holds on to that.

Aadujeevitham can be divided into two parts - one part that shows Najib's forced employment at the labour camp, and the second part being his escape after a chance reunion with an equally destitute Hakeem and his fellow-labourer Ibrahim Khadiri (Jimmy Jean-Louis). The first part is sprinkled with a couple of flashback scenes from Najib's life back in his native place.

The Hindi Dubbing

Now, what I am about to rant about next may not make much sense if you have seen the Malayalam version, but for those who have seen the Hindi dubbed version - like I did (having watched it at a special screening). While the Hindi dubbing isn't that bad - Prithvi did his own lines in Hindi - the change in language also changes the character background, which makes little sense. Najib is shown to be from Satara, Maharashtra and only speaks Hindi, which isn't right - I mean, why can't he speak Marathi as well? Also, no matter how much you insist he is from 'Satara', it looks idiotic when anyone can tell the scenes of his native place are clearly from Kerala. Aadujeevitham presents this irony in Najib's life, where he comes from a land lush with greenery and rivers and throws in a place that lacks both.

Kerala made perfect sense there, so why was there a need to keep calling his native place something else for the sake of dubbing? He could have just been from Kerala, yet you could show him speak in Hindi. Or better, not have a dubbed release after all, and rely on - as Parasite director Bong Joon-ho puts it - the viewer's ability to 'overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles'. No matter the intentions of the makers and the lead star to give it a larger reach, a film like Aadujeevitham belongs to a niche genre for commercial markets especially outside Kerala. You could have simply released the film in its original language and subtitles, and it would still have had the same impact.

The Flashback Scenes

Now that the Mallu in me has done with the language rant, let me get ahead with the review. Coming back to the flashback portions, while it presented how Najib's blissful life back home with his beautiful pregnant wife Sainu (Amala Paul), those scenes could have been trimmed or, in a bolder move, be done away with. In fact, one of those scenes houses an act of domestic violence sneakily wrapped as an act of romance.

We could easily empathise with Najib's trapped situation even without those scenes. In a film that nearly clocks three hours, Aadujeevitham could have offered only fleeting glimpses of his life back home and kept the focus more on the camp. While the film takes its time to expand on Najib's sufferings there, Aadujeevitham rushes on Najib's transition from a hapless victim to someone who robotically works around the farm.

A Gruelling Escape Route

The second part of Aadujeevitham, when Najib finally makes his escape, is thankfully devoid of any flashback sequences. If you think that the escape portions would be a respite from the punishing scenes of the labour camp, you are absolutely WRONG! There are some very intense, gruelling scenes that will make you despise eating your popcorn if you ever make the mistake of buying the pack during the interval. Unlike 2024's biggest Malayalam blockbuster Manjummel Boys, Blessy doesn't allow Aadujeevitham to take the uplifting route. He wants the viewer to feel the laborious journey of Najib and his two companions, witness every blister, every crack and every wound on their bodies, and not flinch when that happens.

It is a stunningly bold move from the director to not compromise on his vision and to leave the audience utterly disturbed by the unfolding visuals. But at the same time, the storytelling gets flat in the process. I may not be wrong in saying that Aadujeevitham nearly becomes a torture porn, where the first sign of civilisation shown near the third act of the film becomes a relief for the viewer, except it might be less for Najib than for themselves. More than a character-driven saga, which had been a strength of Blessy's films in the past - be it Kazhcha, Thanmathra or even the underrated Pranayam - Aadujeevitham focuses more on Najib's sufferings and tortures and less on how those experiences mould him and even his companions better as characters. Aadujeevitham aka The Goat Life Review: Mani Ratnam Calls Director Blessy’s Film a Visual Spectacle, Praises Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Performance.

So what happens here is that while you wince and baulk at Najib's physical and psychological agonies, there is still an emotional detachment to the character, often leaving him as someone you are coerced to watch but not forced to empathise. This is evident from the film's rushed ending - after putting the protagonist and the viewer through the grind for more than two hours - the emotional relief that Najib feels doesn't have the time to permeate the screen.

The Visual Excellence

Thankfully, what aids Aadujeevitham a great deal is the film's technical and visual prowess. The labour of love, the years-long dedication that Blessy has been carrying for Aadujeevitham can be fully seen committed to the screen, making it quite an 'international' film in its feel. There are some mind-blowing visuals of the desert vistas - the scene where Najib reunites with Hakeem could look like a Biblical frame - courtesy of the efforts of its two cinematographers - KU Mohanan and Sunil KS.

The VFX used in certain scenes is not always spot on - the desert storm scenes did look artificial, but there are sequences - like Najib being surrounded by vipers - where the special effects truly shine. Aadujeevitham also benefits from having AR Rahman as its composer - while his mellifluous songs still don't bring back the magic of his earlier compositions - the Oscar winner scores much better in the background area. Perhaps there is no scene to ascertain this than the sequence where Najib stumbles upon an oasis in the desert. The visual excellence and the score make for a lovely but brief respite there.

Prithviraj Sukumaran

But I would dare say Aadujeevitham's biggest asset is Prithviraj's complete dedication to the role - the actor even goes nude in what is Aadujeevitham's most harrowing scene, where we properly get to see what camp life has done to Najib physically. It is a performance that demands award attention purely for the efforts he has put into the role, though special mention must also be given to the makeup and costume design.

Even though the focus is mostly on Prithviraj's character, Jimmy Jean-Louis and KR Gokul also manage to stand out on their own.

Final Thoughts on Aadujeevitham aka The Goat Life

Aadujeevitham is not everyone's cup of tea, and it certainly doesn't rankle your emotions as some of Blessy's past films did, even if the movie tries excruciatingly hard to do so across nearly three hours. Yet the film manages to astound you in its unflinching vision of bringing alive a tale of an ordinary man's true grit against Herculean odds for survival in a stunning visual palette, driven by a career-best acting effort from Prithviraj Sukumaran.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 28, 2024 10:16 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).