24 frames per second

Some spoilers. This is usually a problem but in a character drama like this, what happens is hardly the point. Still, reader beware.

Water is everywhere in Ullozhukku. The film is set during a flood, and much of the proceedings take place in a house that is partially underwater. Two women occupy the house — mother and daughter-in-law. A third — the son — has just died, and the water makes it difficult to plan the funeral. Other family members land up as well, and a lot of what has been happening beneath the surface starts to come up.

The two women are playing a game where the people around them have made most of the moves already. Anju, the daughter-in-law, deals with it more proactively — there’s a lover waiting in the wings, and a child (his) on the way. The mother Leelamma is stuck in place, but has been playing this game a lot longer and has largely learnt to cope.

Water serves as both milieu and metaphor in a film replete with them, but even more interesting is how the body of the son/husband is treated, and how its presence and proximity serves as a metaphor for what these people deal with (or avoid).

That being said, this is not a cryptic film that works only if you decipher these clues. The dialogue is straightforward (albeit sparse), the acting by Parvathy and Urvashi is nothing short of spectacular, and the visuals do a considerable amount of heavy lifting.

What’s really impressive about Ullozhukku is how, while the plot itself isn’t surprising, the film finds ways to surprise us. There’s a moment when Anju rages against her parents. She didn’t want this marriage and felt suffocated in it, she says. The camera cuts to Leelamma and the reaction you see isn’t one of shock or disappointment; it is more akin to someone suddenly finding a corner piece in a jigsaw.

Another standout is a nearly wordless sequence where Anju finds she is pregnant. A moment with a calendar tells us that she’s forgotten to track her period, and a shot with a home pregnancy test kit is framed so that the kit is shown slightly out of focus, and her face in the mirror tells us all we need to know. This is beautiful, economical filmmaking.

I know I might’ve made it seem like the film is slow and dull, but honestly, I was riveted throughout its running time. What a story like this needs, most of all, is space to breathe. Stories can be told instantly; people take time to come to terms with reality.

If at all the film falters, it is towards the end, which feels almost too obvious and a touch more melodramatic than what has come before. This is, however, a minor misstep, and doesn’t really change what the film has been building towards. The closing portions of the film feel right. Sometimes, the right thing is the hardest thing to do. But it gets easier when you realize that it’s the only thing to do.