Nizhal, directed by Appunni N Bhattathiri, is a psychological thriller starring Kunchacko Boban and Nayanthara in the lead. Boban plays John Baby, a district magistrate, who has recently recovered from a car accident and has to wear a mask to protect his nose. He is also having PTSD episodes, hallucinating rainstorms when there are none. John gets intrigued by the strange case of a kid Nitin, the son of a graphic designer Sharmila, played by Nayanthara, whose short story about a brutal murder becomes a bit too real. Nizhal Movie Review: Kunchacko Boban and Nayanthara’s Psychological Thriller Fails To Make Best Use of a Captivating Central Mystery.

The central mystery about Nitin's source of these stories - whether supernatural or psychological - has a lot of potential and intrigue, but the movie doesn't fully capitalise on it to be a very captivating thriller. The climax, especially, is a let down, though the reveal behind Nitin's mystery is quite a nice one.

So in this feature, let's breakdown the finale of Nizhal and what does the strange credit sequence means?

The Finale

Well, it turns out that Sharmila was the reason behind Nitin getting all the macabre stories, as John accidentally stumble upon this discovery. She wasn't deliberately doing so. Sharmila has the disorder of sleep talking, and since Nitin sleeps with her, his unconscious mind registers whatever she is saying in her sleep, and he then recreates them in his stories. So Sharmila has no clue about the kind of 'influence' she is putting on her son.

She herself is oblivious of those stories, since she also had heard them in her sleep. Only they weren't stories, but murder confessions by a man she knew in the past. I am not sure why Sharmila forgets about this man, when John asks her if there was any other person who was close to her family. Later after meeting Vishwanath (Lal), she then claims he was a great help to her mother, and she even thought they might have been closer than friends! What's with this amnesia, Sharmila?

Anyway, Vishwanath, who had a crush on Sharmila's mother, Radhamma, is a political worker and all those deaths had been orchestrated by him for his party. He later confesses them to Radhamma, while a young Sharmila who used to sleep in her mother's lap, unconsciously registered those stories in her sleep. Why would they discuss murder stories when a kid is sleeping is beyond my comprehension. Joji Ending Explained: Decoding the Climax of Fahadh Faasil-Dileesh Pothan's Macbethian Thriller.

Vishwanath, now old, hasn't however gone harmless though. Which is why he decides to kill Sharmila and her son, because they know what he has done. What's more he had also killed her mother, because she knew too much, and the stupid man that he is, he went onto confess his crime to a sleeping Sharmila, who - the sleeping sound recorder that she is - registers that as well, and passes it on to her son years later.

So to close the loopholes, Vishwanath goes to kill Sharmila, but thanks to a timely intervention of John, he accidentally falls to his doom. Vishwanath need not have bothered though. Even if she would have realised the truth about her mother's demise, Sharmila couldn't do much about him, as her nighttime blabberings wouldn't stand in court, unless Vishwanath himself confesses the truth.

Only people he needed to have feared are the ones who made him carry out the killings, but for that he needed to have finished off John, his friend and the latter's wife as well. For all these heard what he had done.

However if you thought that Vishwanath's death meant an end to Sharmila's problems, you didn't observe the end-credit scene carefully.

The End-Credit Scene

Okay, I am a bit confused as to how John manage to get Sharmila cut loose from the investigations around Vishwanath;s death, but let's assume he managed to pull that off with his using his judicial control. Anyway, everyone's safe and John is seen driving Nitin and Sharmila to presumably the airport from his home, from where the mother and son would fly off to Sweden. Since John's mother asks Sharmila to coax John for a potential marriage alliance, I guess that means John and Sharmila had put an end to their budding attraction to each other.

Anyway, as they drive, John is seen playfully interacting with Nitin, while Sharmila is quiet, and then the scene ends. However, before the scene ends, the BG score takes a sombre turn and even the colour scheme of the frame transitions from brighter hues to dull bluish grey. This was the same colour frame that was used whenever Nizhal showed John's PTSD episodes. If that's not enough, we also see dark clouds filling the sky. Love Movie Ending Explained: Decoding the Confusing, Complicated Climax of Shine Tom Chacko, Rajisha Vijayan’s Malayalam Film on Netflix.

However, since John is seen having a fun time interacting with Nitin, it means that it is Sharmila who is now suffering from PTSD, presumably having seen the death of Vishwanath, along with the added realisation that she has been passing on macabre murder stories to her son. It will stay on with her like a shadow. Now did you get the significance of the title.

So what do you think about the climax of Nizhal? Share your thoughts and observations in the comments section below.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 11, 2021 06:09 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).